Manama maintain edge over Kazma to start season with a win

MANAMA (Bahrain) - Even without Momo Jones, Manama continues to torment Kazma by winning their WASL-Gulf 2023/2024 season opener, 84-76.

The two teams faced off in the Qualification to Semi-Finals round last season, with Manama coming from behind to win the series. Manama went on to make it to the WASL-Gulf Finals, even winning the Final 8.

They tipped off their second season of WASL play, where they left off with an 8-0 run to start in a game where they lead for nearly 38 minutes in total.

Returning star Travin Thibodeaux started the game in perfect form, scoring 9 points on 4-4 shooting and grabbing 6 assists in the first quarter alone. The rest of the game saw Manama get their offensive output from Mosti Rashed, who scored his personal high of 29 points, and Sir' Dominic Pointer.

Kazma proved that they were still a team worthy of consideration as a contender and never allowed their opponents to build up too big of a lead. Travis Leslie took some time to get into rhythm but ended up with 21 points, 11 rebounds, and 3 assists. Clint Chapman, who spent last season playing in WASL-Gulf for Al Hilal, added 23 points for Kazma.

Game Heroes: The game was tightly contested in the first half, but Manama were able to gain a significant advantage once Sir' Dominic Pointer took over in the second half. In the last two quarters, Pointer scored 14 of his 20 points—many of which were thunderous dunks—to make sure his WASL-Gulf debut was a success.

STEP AHEAD Player of the Game: Pointer also had 8 rebounds and 6 assists to his name while also shooting an uber-efficient 10-13 from the field. He'd finish with an EFF rating of 31 to earn the title of STEP AHEAD Player of the Game.

Turning point: Pointer, Thibodeaux, and Mosti garnered much of the spotlight in this game, and deservedly so. But when Ali Rashed knocked down the three-pointer to give Manama a five-point lead in the middle of the third quarter, it felt as if Kazma had their wind knocked out. It was Ali's only point of the game, but it felt big.

Stats don’t lie: It was not the best way to get things started for Kazma as they shot only 42.3 percent from the field. Of course, it's only the first game, and Leslie will have better days than today, where he shot 8-23 from the floor.

They said, "The plan was to come in and play tough. That's a tough game over there; a good shooting team, big team. We just know we're champions, and we wanted to come in and compete and try to do what we did last year. It's a basketball game; there are going to be ups and downs. They're going to make runs, and we're going to make runs, and that's what happened, and we just happened to make the bigger run." - Sir' Dominic Pointer

FIBA