Photo: Cleveland Charge
Cleveland, Ohio - The Cleveland Charge searched for a bounce back win on their home floor. They were fresh off of a 120-107 loss to Capital City Go-Go. Emoni Bates’ 32 points along with Zhaire Smith’s second half performance helped the Charge redeem their Friday night loss to Go-Go.
I got to speak with Cleveland Charge Head Coach Mike Gerrity about the win and he touched on their defensive efforts a little bit.
“I thought we did a good job of just keeping them off balance today with our man and our zone defense," said Gerrity. "I thought that second group that came in kind of late in that second quarter with Devontae it was a lot of versatile really good defenders.. I just thought the intensity just picked up.”
The Charge came out in the first quarter flat opening up trailing 7-0 in the first few minutes. Capital City found success around the basket early, Jules Bernard got out to a good start in the first scoring nine points for Capital City Go-Go. Three's started to fall for the Charge as they fought their way back ending the quarter trailing 27-24.
The three point shooting success from the end of the first quarter carried over into the second for the Charge. The Charge shot an exceptional 9/10 from three in the quarter. Emoni Bates was a huge part of that, knocking down several threes and scoring 15 in the quarter. He helped the Charge go into the half up 68-53.
The Charge continued to maintain and extend their lead throughout the second half. Zhaire Smith came up big in the half scoring 14 points.
I asked him hi what helped him perform so well in the half.
“Defense gets us going and getting out in transition, getting easy buckets," said Smith. "Emoni did a good job of finding me for my open shots and all that and Sharife.”
Capital City Go-Go found ways to keep chipping at the lead. They started to get shots falling from outside in the third. A three from Hamidou Diallo cut the lead to 77-69 with about seven minutes to go in the quarter. The quarter ended with the Charge up 100-84.
In the fourth quarter Capital Go-Go was able to close the gap to eight points again, trailing 104-96 with eight minutes remaining. Sharife Cooper was huge down the stretch closing the game out for the Charge. He scored eight points in the fourth quarter to help push the Charge to the 128-111 win.
Emoni Bates led all scorers with 32 points and seven rebounds, Zhaire Smith finished with 18 points on only eight shot attempts. R.J. Hampton finished with 23 points and Jules Bernard and Hamidou Diallo both tallied 22 points for Capital City Go-Go.
The Cleveland Charge will be back in action February 28th at 7 PM at Gateway Center Arena.