Travin Thibodeaux starred with 21 points to go with six rebounds and three assists as defending champions Manama outclassed arch-rivals Muharraq, 93-85, last night in the first game at the Khalifa Sports City Arena to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five 2022-23 Zain Basketball League final series.
Fellow American pro Sir’Dominic Pointer backed his compatriot up with 16 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists as Manama, who had entered the fourth and final quarter leading, 69-62, ran away with the game in the final 10 minutes.
Having increased their lead to nine points at 81-72 with five minutes left till the final buzzer, Manama looked comfortably placed.
But, just seconds later, Muharraq’s American pro Dewayne Jackson sank a perfect three-point jump shot to leave the scoreboard reading 81-75 in Manama’s favour.
About 40 seconds later, Jackson scored another three-point jump shot to reduce Manama’s lead to just three points, at 81-78, and the Muharraq supporters, who had created a rippling wave of white and red in half the 3,600-seat arena and had been somewhat subdued as their rivals increased their lead, suddenly found their voices.
But, less than a quarter of a minute later, it was the Manama supporters, creating a blue-shirted tsunami in the other half of the hall, who cheered even louder as Thibodeaux scored a two-point hook shot to push the score to 83-78.
After a scoreless 30 seconds, a personal foul on Manama’s Mohammed Ameer resulted in the player being handed two free throws and he netted both with ease to push his team’s lead to seven points, at 85-78, with three-and-a-half minutes until the end of the game.
A minute later, a two-point dunk by Thibodeaux had increased Manama’s lead back to nine points, at 87-78.
With slightly more than two minutes left, Muharraq needed one of their players to produce something special and Shabazz Nagee Muhammad, their other American pro, obliged with a two-point driving layup.
The scoreboard now read 87-80 in favour of Manama. But any hopes Muharraq might have had of reducing the deficit further were quickly dashed as a Thibodeaux two-point layup pushed his team’s lead back up to nine points again, at 89-80.
There were still roughly two minutes left, though, and Jackson briefly lifted the Muharraq supporters’ spirits with a perfect three-point jump shot which reduced Manama’s lead to six points, 89-83.
Half-a-minute later, Pointer scored a two-point layup and, with about 90 seconds left, Manama were leading by eight points, at 91-83, and a number of Muharraq supporters decided they’d seen enough and began filing out of the hall.
With about 40 seconds left in the game, Muharraq’s Ali Shukralla scored a two-point lay-up to make it 91-85 but it was too little, too late and, by the time Thibodeaux netted his final points of the night with a two-point layup, there were only 18 seconds to go till the final buzzer and the Muharraq players started shaking hands with their opponents to signal the end of the game.
Earlier, supporters of both teams had started entering the arena as early as 3.30pm with the result that, by 4pm, three hours before the scheduled start of the game, more than half the hall was already full and reverberating with the cheers and drumbeats of both teams.
And Manama appeared to take up from exactly where they’d left off in their thrilling win over the same opponents last Monday in the final of the 2022-23 Khalifa Bin Salman Cup, racing to a 28-18 lead by the end of the first quarter and leading 48-43 at half time before eventually closing out a dominant win.
The two teams will now play the second game of the final series on Monday with Muharraq needing to win to restore parity in the best-of-five contest. A second consecutive loss would leave them needing to win all three remaining games in order to secure the trophy.
Meanwhile, Manama, who are seeking to nab the coveted league-and-cup double, will be hoping to prevail in the next two games to win the championship.
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