A good start ends badly for Vancouver Bandits against Honey Badgers

The search for consistency continues for the Vancouver Bandits.

Following a strong opening quarter where they led 19-18, the Bandits surrendered 33 points over the next 10 minutes and found themselves trailing by double digits for nearly the rest of the game.

The end result was a 96-91 loss to the visiting Brampton Honey Badgers on Friday night, July 14, in Canadian Elite Basketball League action at Langley Events Centre.

The victory snapped a five-game losing streak for the Honey Badgers, who improved to 6-9, while the Bandits lost a third-straight game to see their record fall to 5-9.

“Lots of learning,” said Vancouver’s Diego Maffia of what the players can take away from the defeat. “Another game where we are down 20 and then it is too little, too late.

“It is a bad habit of ours to get down and then crawl back and get energy. It is almost like ‘OK, six minutes left in the game? Now we are going to start to defend.’”

Trailing 87-72 heading into Target Score time, the Bandits finally made their push, getting the score down to 95-91 thanks to a 19-8 spurt. But pressing for a steal, the team was whistled for a foul with Christian Vital sinking the winner for the Honey Badgers.

“In our last two games, we have had portions where we really look like we are clicking. And then what happens is we lose our way and we weren’t able to sustain what we want to achieve offensively and defensively,” said Bandits assistant coach Tony Scott.

“If we can transfer how we played in the Target Score section into a full game, then we have what we want to do. We have the chemistry we need; we have the ability to play offence and defence, we have the flow, the quickness. But we haven’t been able to bridge that gap yet.”

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For the second straight game, Malcolm Duvivier led the offence, this time with a team-high 20 points. He also had eight rebounds.

Giorgi Bezhanishvili scored 18 and also had 10 rebounds while Doug Herring Jr. had 16 points, seven assists and six rebounds and Ward had 15 points and eight rebounds.

Vancouver – which is guaranteed one of the four spots in the CEBL’s Championship Weekend in August as the host team – has six games remaining to find its rhythm.

“We just have to be consistent. We have moments in games where we have lapses, we lose focus, we are not rebounding, we are not defending,” Maffia said.

“We have to tighten that up and just be consistent throughout the game, so we only have little lapses. Runs are going to happen, but just limit it to little lapses and we will be good.”

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Next up for the Bandits is a visit from the Montréal Alliance to Langley Events Centre on Sunday, July 16. Tip-off is 5 p.m.