Balanced scoring attack leads Rocks to another victory.
BBL Championship
Glasgow Rocks 95 (20,44,69) (Murray 21, Elechi 15, Achara 13)
Cheshire Phoenix 82 (16,32,63) (Brown Jr 23, Eaves 18, May-Thompson 11)
Glasgow Rocks have strengthened their grip on third place in the BBL Championship after making it five wins in six games with a 95-82 victory over Cheshire Phoenix at the Emirates Arena.
Phoenix came into this one with five consecutive wins in Glasgow, dating back to March 2014, but they had not won in this campaign since their last win north of the border in December, and have now lost five on the spin.
And Rocks led for the majority of this game, although it was rarely comfortable. Gareth Murray split the teams as he scored five in a 7-2 second quarter run, making the score 32-23 as he and Kieron Achara shared 17 early points.
It was double-digits by the half as Anthony Elechi emerged from the bench to quickly get into double-figures himself on 5/5 shooting, Rocks leading 44-32, and Murray’s three-pointer after the break kept the lead at that margin.
Cheshire made it close down the stretch, Frank Eaves scoring four in a 10-2 run across the fourth quarter break that got them back to within one shot at 69-67.
But Jonny Bunyan’s crucial three-pointer kept them off, and when Neil Watson did likewise coming out of a timeout the score was 82-75 inside the last four minutes, before Rocks scored the last nine points of the game to make it comfortable.
Glasgow shot 58% on the night, led by Murray – who is the league’s most accurate shooter – on 61% and 21 points. Watson also had 13 points, nine assists and six rebounds.