The Halifax Rainmen’s overtime curse carried over to their home court on Saturday.
The Rainmen lost for the first time this season at the Metro Centre, falling 104-98 in extra time at the hands of the first-place Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry in Premier Basketball League play before a crowd of 3,196.
It was a game the Rainmen were in a comfortable position to win after nailing a trio of three-pointers to go up by nine, 90-81, with about 90 seconds to go.
But ill-timed turnovers allowed the Cavalry to score some easy hoops and force overtime, and the Rainmen’s sloppy play continued in the extra frame they suffered their fourth overtime setback in six outings.
“A lot of careless mistakes … A lot of little mental mistakes and it cost us the game,” said Rainmen guard Tony Bennett. “As you can tell, overtime hasn’t really been in our favour this season and they killed us.”
Gary Ervin piled up a team-high 26 points for the Rainmen but was also responsible for six of the team’s 19 turnovers. Bennett and Desmond Ferguson added 18 apiece and Eric Crookshank had 17 points and 18 rebounds.
The Rainmen beat the Maryland Greenhawks on Friday night on the road 132-118 and had a wake-up call at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning to fly back to Halifax.
If fatigue led to the late-game letdown, the Rainmen weren’t admitting it.
“That’s no excuse,” Bennett said. “We got a game to play, we got a job to do, and we got to come out here and get a win.”
The fourth-place Rainmen, 11-6, are just one game ahead of the fifth-place Vermont Frost Heaves (10-7) for the final PBL playoff spot.
The Rainmen visit Vermont on Friday in a game with huge playoff implications.
