11.1.2019: Sony Centre Fury - City of Edinburgh 88:79
FURY STAY TOP AS THEY TOPPLE KINGS IN THRILLER
SONY CENTRE FURY 88 EDINBURGH KINGS 79
Scottish Championship Senior Men Division 1
In a game of many story lines, the keys happened in the third quarter as Fury – 10 down and looking as though they were heading to defeat, came out a timeout with under 2 minutes of the quarter remaining and a switch of defence that resulted in an 8-0 Fury run to bring the game back to 2pts as the teams entered the final period. The packed crowd at the Grangemouth SC – were on their feet as Fury then stormed into the lead at the start of the 4th and stayed in front in spectacular fashion to the finish, for a crucial 9pt win overturning their 4pt loss to the Kings in the capital earlier in the season and giving Fury the head to head over the Edinburgh side.
Fury’s ultimate 19pt turnaround was not only on the back of the switch to a 2-3 zone defence, that saw the Kings struggle to unlock Fury’s switching D but the execution at this period from in particular – Scottish stars, centre Ross Gibson, Captain Keith Bunyan and guard Bryan Munnoch who all made big baskets in this spell. Not only did Gibson score big inside but the Sony sponsored side’s games top scorer – Bulgarian Boris Matrakov hit 10 personal during this spell.
Eddy Leginas did a great job in the zone and with Munnoch led the teams offensive charge that saw Captain Keith Bunyan – now 41yrs hit 2 huge shots in the run in the 4th.
Bantu Burroughs came in late in the 4th as Fury ran out 9pt victors.
The game had started as was expected very close but unexpectedly high scoring. The first match this season had seen a 55-51 win to the Kings but by half-time the teams sat on 44-42 to the capital side. Austrian Adam Hammerscmidt had been Fury’s top scorer in that first half with 14 of his total 15pts for the game. Burroughs with 9 and Matrakov with 8 had also performed well for Fury in these quarters.
But the third was where Fury looked as though they may find themselves with too much to do as they failed to contain the Kings offence until their switch of D altered the game.
The win keeps Fury at the top of the table but still on 4 losses, which with Reign needing to lose 5 of their last 8 games seems unlikely Fury will retain their position at the top for too much longer – a position they have held almost all season. What the Kings win does do is give the Falkirk side a great chance to take the runners –up slot and the focus for the team will be to keep winning in the run up to the Cup Final against St.Mirren and beyond.
For Fury Matrakov’s 25pts was big, with Hammerschmidt’s key 14pts in the first half also vital. Bunyan (3 threes) and Burroughs shared 22pts. Ross Gibson had his best game of the season with 13pts and Bryan Munnoch also had his best game with 7pts, particularly in that final quarter. Leginas was steady throughout while not hitting his usual big number of points. Ivan Ganchev, like Leginas contributed throughout as Headcoach John Bunyan restricted his rotation to 8 players.
Bunyan commented to Heraldsport after the game –
‘One of the best finishes ever to our Men's team. We came out of that timeout in the third like a rejuvenated team – the players just worked unbelievably hard in the zone and zones have a lot of detractors but they require a lot of hard work and the players also get the benefit of having stops by believing in their offence – we spread the floor in the final period and Ross and Boris got lots of opportunities that they took – great job all round with the Kings as always giving us a really hard game and it was a real sporting match which the crowd really enjoyed’