Last second slam gives Huntsville showcase win
January 17, 2005 - NBA G League (G League)
Huntsville Flight News Release
COLUMBUS, Ga., January 17 â With less than three seconds left to play in the game, Huntsville forward Cedric Henderson found teammate Damone Brown wide open for an easy two-handed dunk, giving the Flight a dramatic 77-76 win over the Columbus Riverdragons at the Columbus Civic Center.
Brown's game-winner came 1.4 seconds after Columbus' Adam Harrington gave his team a one point lead with a dunk of his own.
With the win, Huntsville (13-9) improves to 3-1 against the Riverdragons. Columbus (14-4) has now lost three consecutive games, including both games as the host team in the Martin Luther King Jr. Showcase.
Brown finished with the only double-double of the game recording 10 rebounds to go with his 13 points. Bernard King led the way for the Flight with 18 points while Rodney Bias was the game's top rebounder pulling in 15 boards.
Harrington finished as the game's leading scorer with 24 points on 8-of-18 shooting from the field. Seth Doliboa and Reed Rawlings chipped in 12 points each.
"We had a play drawn up for Bernard (King) to take the last shot at first," said Huntsville head coach Ralph Lewis. "But, I thought there was a chance they might switch on Bernard and leave Damone open under the basket. They did, and Cedric found him with a great inbound pass."
"That's never supposed to happen," added Columbus head coach Jeff Malone. "I told them in the huddle before the play not to switch on anything. We've got to raise our level of concentration when we're on the court. That's a tough one to swallow."
After taking a five-point lead following a jumper by Antoine Pettway with 2:22 left in the fourth, the Flight's inability to hold on to the basketball almost cost them the game as they committed four turnovers the rest of the way.
Brown's last second shot was the only shot the Flight got off in the last two minutes of the game.
"It seemed like we did want to give the game away with all those turnovers late," said Lewis. "But the guys over on this sideline made it up in their minds that they weren't going to lose this game. They had confidence in themselves and it showed when we really needed it too."
Huntsville also overcame a dismal night of shooting from the field (36.8 percent) with a solid night from the free-throw line going 27-for-32 (84.4 percent). Columbus made just 18 of its 28 free-throw attempts for a 64.3 percentage.
In addition to King and Brown, Pettway and Nichols also reached double-digits ending their showcase with 16 and 13 points, respectively.
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