PORTLAND- The Oklahoma City Blue used a 28-0 run that stretched from the second quarter and into the third on Monday night and put seven players in double figures, in capturing the NBA G League Championship with a 117-100 win over the Maine Celtics in Game 3 of the Finals at the Portland Expo. OKC won the final two games of the series (best of three), after Maine had taken Game 1 by 20 points in Portland last Tuesday.
Maine held four early leads by as many as three over the first 4:17 of the first quarter. Oklahoma City went on a 7-0 run to take a six point lead and would never trail after that. The Blue led by as many as nine and 29-22 after the opening 12 minutes. The Celtics fought back to tie it on two occasions in the second on a three-pointer by Jordan Walsh, and a layup by JD Davison. With OKC leading 42-40 with 5:06 left in the first half, they started their big run that stunned the large Expo crowd. The Blue scored the final 21 points of the period, and Maine missed their final nine shots and went into the break all of a sudden down by 23 at 63-40. Ousmane Dieng hit a pair of three-pointers, and Lindy Waters III hit another from long distance during the spurt to build the comfortable halftime advantage.
The Western Conference Champions from Oklahoma City scored the first seven points of the third quarter to cap off a 28-0 run to take their biggest lead of the night 70-40. Maine sliced 10 points off their deficit in the next 3:16 going on a 12-2 run to make it 72-52 finished off by a Brandon Slater three-pointer off a feed from Drew Peterson. They got within 16 with 4:52 to go, but the Blue responded with another run of 14-2 to increase their lead back to 28 and was on cruise control the rest of the way. OKC wins their third title in franchise history, the first as the Blue in their current city with the other two championships coming back to back in 2004 and 2005 when they were known as the Asheville (North Carolina) Altitude in what was the NBA Development League at the time.
Davison led Maine in the loss with 22 points, 10 assists, four rebounds, and four steals. Peterson and Joe Wieskamp both added 13 points, while Slater had 11. Peterson also had eight rebounds and eight assists. The Celtics shot 42.6% from the field, but just 11-39 (28.2%) from behind the arc in finishing their season with a record of 24-15 after winning their first ever Eastern Conference Title and also appearing in the Finals for the first time. Dieng led Oklahoma City with 25 points, six rebounds, and four assists. Dieng was also named the MVP of the Finals. Jahmi’us Ramsey (18 points), Waters III (15), Keyontae Johnson (14), Adam Flagler (13), Olivier Sarr (10), and Hunter Maldonado (10) also all scored in double figures. The Blue shot 48.8%, and knocked down 13-31 (41.9%) from the three-point line. OKC went 5-1 in the postseason as they finished with a record of 26-14.
Recap/photos/videos by Chris Lessner
