Published27. March 2024, 9:45 p.m.
Basketball: Another season begins for the Lions
While the play-offs started this Wednesday, the felines of Pommier found their fangs against Monthey by winning 78-61.
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Christian Maillard – Geneva
Robert Zinn, ball in hand, was elected “favorite” of the evening at Le Pommier.
Pierre Maillard
After four defeats in their last five meetings, the Geneva Lions found their fangs at the right time as the play-offs started this Wednesday at the Salle du Pommier. Faced with a Monthey who were up to ten lengths ahead (4-14, 5th), the Grand-Saconnex players ended up passing the shoulder by finding the trigger shortly after the break, never to let go again their bone. Noé Anabir, like a good captain, hoped for this trigger. After a complicated start, he was heard.
“Something in you is not right,” sang Jean-Louis Aubert, leader of the group Téléphone, in the sound system at Le Pommier. We had been playing for 2”34 and the score was then 0-9 for Monthey after three straight three-point shots from Michael Sjöberg, in a state of grace. It was already scorching for the Genevans still on their roller coaster against these Valaisans where they had been beaten two times out of three during the regular season. The visitors, aware that they had a good chance to play, were up to ten points ahead (4-14, 5th) against a talented group but which still seemed as inconsistent.
It looked like a normal evening of the Geneva Lions’ last outings where the lights go out, where we look at each other with lots of questions on the bench, with players nodding their heads and not understanding everything. But it wasn’t an evening like any other with the start of the play-offs, where we erase everything and start again, where anything can happen.
In a hurray-basketball match where we used and abused long-range shots (54 in total), the score played like a yo-yo until the break while the leaders of Dragan Andrejevic (Mbala, Colon, Zinn, Humphrey and Gravet) took their responsibilities (finally) at the same time so that a good effort (13-2 in 6′) erased the visitors’ lead before the first quarter (17-16). If the Montheysans, with a Clayton Le Sann motivated as ever, hung on, as usual, the Lions of Geneva did not give up this time, pulling out a good address from their sleeves. Where the orchestra was finally able to shine together until the end.
Everything that was finally said at the table, in the locker room, was not cleared away with the tablecloth. “If we find the trigger, it could be magical,” declared captain Noé Anabir before this first act. The rest is Saturday at Pommier, another match in perspective…
2024-03-27 21:30:54
#Basketball #season #begins #Lions
