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Toros Clip D-Fenders at Buzzer

February 17, 2009 - NBA G League (G League)
Los Angeles D-Fenders News Release


EL SEGUNDO, CA - Pops Mensah-Bonsu buried a 21' jump shot with 0.1 seconds remaining to lift the Austin Toros over the Los Angeles D-Fenders, 110-108, Tuesday evening at STAPLES Center.

Los Angeles rallied in the second half to erase a 22-point Toros lead, but was unable to come away with the victory dropping their record to 8-22 on the season. Austin continued to bolster their record away from home, winning their league-high eleventh road game.

"We just wanted to play our game;" said D-Fenders head coach Dan Panaggio. "I think the guys realized they had to step it up. We were the aggressor for most of the second half, but were not the aggressor in the last three minutes of the ball game."

Joe Crawford led the D-Fenders comeback with 20 of his game-high 32 points in the second half. Dwayne Mitchell poured in 25 and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds. Coming off the bench, CJ Giles provided a spark posting 13 points and six rebounds in the loss.

Mensah-Bonsu's winning basket pushed his total to a team-high 25 points while also grabbing 11 rebounds. Rounding out the five Toros starters who scored in double digits are Marcus Williams (23), Eric Dawson (17), Carldell Johnson (14) and Ezra Williams (14).

Austin jumped out to an early 10-0 lead and finished the first quarter with a 35-23 advantage. Capitalizing on 11 first half D-Fenders turnovers the Toros were able to extend their lead to 19 at the intermission.

"They jumped all over us (Austin scoring first ten points of game)" Panaggio added. "We weren't ready to play, they beat us on fast breaks and they came at us hard."

Los Angeles clawed their way back into the game with a strong third quarter cutting the lead to 84-81; Los Angeles took their first lead of the game with 9:32 remaining in the fourth quarter but could not hold on. Despite shooting the ball well from the field (54.8%), the D-Fenders second half resurgence was hindered by poor free throw shooting; they finished the night 23-38 from the charity stripe.

The D-Fenders will host the Rio Grande Valley Vipers on Friday at STAPLES Center; tip-off scheduled for 3:30pm. The Toros will look to sweep the California trio when they travel to Bakersfield on Thursday to face the Jam.

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