Kuwait Club nearing return to Gulf League Final with rout of Kazma

KUWAIT CITY (Kuwait) - Kuwait Club moved a win away from booking a return trip to the FIBA WASL-Gulf League Final following a 101-87 conquest of Kazma in their Semi-Finals opener, Tuesday night at the Shaikh Saad Alabdullah Sport Hall Complex.

The reigning sub-zone champions overcame a sluggish start before pulling away in the fourth quarter as the squad continued their winning ways since losing back-to-back outings during the Group Phase, which nearly cost them an outright trip to the Semis.

Now they have a chance to formalize their entry to the Gulf League Final in Game 2 next Tuesday, April 2, 22:00 local time, in the same battleground.

Game heroes: Five players finished in double figures in the win, with Cady Lalanne leading the pack with 27 points on 8-of-13 shooting from the field and 11 rebounds. The star big man netted an efficiency of 34 on the way to earning STEP AHEAD Player of the Game honors.

Hamad Hasan came through with 22 points, spiked by four triples, and 6 rebounds. Tony Carr came off the bench and supplied 18 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals.

Veteran winger Marcus Georges-Hunt produced 15 points and 7 assists, while floor general Turki Alshemmari chipped in 11 points for the repeat-seeking Kuwait Club.

Turning point: Game was tied late in the third chapter until Alshemmari, Lalanne, and Carr joined hands for five straight points to end the quarter in their favor, 76-71.

The Hasan Bros. then came in to help in the early fourth-quarter assault, which enabled Kuwait Club to build an 85-74 lead and take control the rest of the way.

An Omran Jawhar dunk to make it a 95-84 count with 2:35 left to play proved to be the killer blow as Kazma no longer managed to cut the deficit to a single digit since then, with Lalanne and Georges-Hunt delivering the final touches to deliver the victory.

Stats don't lie: Lalanne's 34 EFF matched his personal-high this season. The 31-year-old center also had the same EFF in a 91-83 win against Al Ahli Jeddah in their final Group Phase assignment last February 12 that secured their trip to the Gulf League Semis.

They said: "A lot of things went well  We're not happy with the way we defended in the first half but you also have to give them credit, they came out really, really focused ...  Travis Leslie probably had one of his best games -- I've never seen him play like that. But once we figured out how we can stop them, and get them to take tougher shots, and getting out on the open court, getting a couple of easy baskets, we were OK." - Peter Schomers, Head Coach, Kuwait Club

"It feels great that we got this win, definitely takes the pressure off our shoulders. But they're going to come in next game and play even harder, so we have to be ready for that. We've been there before last season, making it to the Final, and then we didn't finish everything off. So this year we're looking to complete everything so I'm not really too excited; as long as we finish everything off in the Final 8, that's really our goal. To get there." - Cady Lalanne, Kuwait Club

"I think we stayed in the game for pretty much a long period. With Kuwait Club, it's always like this. When you lose a little bit of focus, we go down a little bit physically and they make defensive switches, it's hard to recover from. This is still 0-1, the second game is in one week. We're gonna try to prepare and improve on some things." - Bojan Lazic, Head Coach, Kazma

FIBA