It was another slow start for the Santa Cruz Warriors, as they fell behind early to the Grand Rapids Drive and never truly recovered.
After coming from behind Thursday night against the Canton Charge, the Warriors could not overcome a consecutive poor first quarter, falling to the Drive 100-77.
The loss knocked the Warriors out of the first annual D-League Showcase Cup Championship. A win would have seen the Warriors play in the Final on Monday.
Santa Cruz Head Coach said it was disappointment to not be playing in the final, even though it wouldn’t have counted toward the team’s regular season record.
“I think any time these guys get to play in front of NBA people it’s a good thing,” Hill said. “I wanted to continue giving them these opportunities.”
Mychel Thompson led the Warriors in scoring with 18 points, while James Michael McAdoo and Dominique Sutton added 15 and 12, respectively.
For Grand Rapids, Lorenzo Brown led all scorers with 21 points, while Detroit Piston Luigi Datome, down on assignment, added 17 of his own.
Despite having the home court advantage, the Warriors fell behind by as many as 16 in the first quarter as Brown and Datome combined to hit three of four from behind the three-point arc.
Hill said he didn’t think it was a lack of defensive effort that allowed them to shoot so well from downtown.
“A couple of those were just pull-up threes,” Hill said. ” I didn’t think it was our defense that lost us this game, it was our offense.”
Ognjen Kuzmic, also on assignment from Golden State, went without a point in 31 minutes, but did finish with 11 rebounds and 2 blocks.
Turnovers and poor shooting limited the Warriors to just 10 points in the opening period.
Hill said he thought the Warriors allowed the Drive’s pressure defense to dictate the way the Santa Cruz performed offensively.
“We didn’t play quick offense, we played hurried offense,” Hill said. “We were always looking over our shoulder whenever we shot it or whenever we passed it.”
The offense improved slightly in the second quarter, but Grand Rapids guard Lorenzo Brown hit a buzzer beating three-pointer from half-court to put the Drive back up by 15.
Aaron Craft buoyed the Warriors in the first half with eight points and three assists, but Santa Cruz shot just 24.3 percent as a team en route to a 49-34 deficit at the break.
Craft finished the game with 10 points, six rebounds, four assists, and just one turnover.
Santa Cruz shot the ball better in the second half, including a 7-14 start coming out of halftime, but the turnover issues persisted as the team gave the ball away nine times in the third quarter alone.
For the game, the Warriors shot just 34.2 percent from the field with 24 turnovers, compared with 43.7 percent and just 14 turnovers for Grand Rapids.
Entering the final period the Warriors trailed Grand Rapids 70-51 with no player shooting 50 percent or better from the field.
While Santa Cruz did manage to cut the lead as low as 12 in the fourth, their comeback try ultimately fell short, and they were knocked out of the Showcase Cup.
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