Toothless Tigers battered by devastating Dynamo in BAL opener

Blinded by the bright lights and weighed down by the expectations of playing on home soil, the Cape Town Tigers lost their opening game in the Kalahari Conference of the Basketball Africa League 86-73 to a gritty Dynamo Basketball Club on Saturday night. 

With the exception of a brief period in the third quarter and then at the start of the fourth, when they shrunk a 20-point gap to just five, the Tigers lacked bite. 

For all the focus on their stunning journey to get to this stage of the tournament — including playing games on outdoor courts some of which had to be halted because of rain — Dynamo, from Burundi, showed plenty of savvy. 

Led by their foreign imports, American point guard Bryton Hobbs, who led their scoring with 24 points, and British centre Kinyo Williams, who scored 19, the Burundian club silenced a boisterous crowd at the SunBet Arena in Tshwane. 

Dynamo made their shots in a nervy first quarter, while Cape Town struggled, their players seemingly carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. They missed their first four shots, while the Burundians opened up an 11-0 lead inside the first three minutes.

Tiger’s coach "Flosh" Ngwenya correctly called a timeout at that point, and it achieved the desired result as immediately after that break the Tigers made their first shot of the game. 

Their Durban-born star, Samkelo Cele, then got the crowd charged with a three-pointer from the left corner, but that was the only highlight of an otherwise frustrating quarter. 

Dynamo, led by Hobbs, settled into their work, with Dhieu Deng producing some spectacular plays that energised his team and even won over some in the partisan courtside audience. 

By halftime Dynamo led by 15 points, which they would stretch to 20 as Hobbs and Williams easily picked apart the Tigers defence. At the same time they almost dared them to shoot threes, something they struggled with, throughout the game. The scored just nine of their 30 attempts from beyond the arc. 

They found some spark through the latter stages of the third quarter, as led by Cele they ate into the Dynamo lead. Cele finished with 23 points but received little help in the scoring department from his teammates. 

Besides his scoring, Hobbs also dished out eight assists and grabbed four steals, underlining his dominance of the game. Israel Otobo and Deng each scored 22 points, in a win that will do plenty for the confidence of the Burundian team. 

They will face FUS Rabat on Sunday afternoon, while Cape Town must get their challenge back on track against Petro Luanda of Angola at 7pm. 

In the opening encounter on Saturday, Johnathan Jordan’s 17 points inspired FUS Rabat to a 82-73 upset win against Petro Luanda. 

Jordan turned from first-half facilitator into Rabat’s chief scorer in the second half, as they held off a second-half charge from the Angolans. Carlos Morais with 19 points was Luanda’s top scorer.