Robert Bailey, Freelance Writer

St. George's Slayers' Richard Hunt (centre) challenges Urban Knights' Marais Reddie (right) for a rebound during the KFC/National Basketball League mid-season final on Saturday night at the National Arena. The Knights won 78-77. - Peta-Gaye Clachar/Staff Photographer

Urban Knights secured the first silverware this season when they registered an exciting 78-77 victory over defending champions St. Georges' Slayers, in the National Basketball Association KFC/NBL/Tru-juice mid-season final on Saturday night at the National Arena.

The first quarter was evenly contested with the Slayers holding a 21-17 lead at the end of the period of a game played before a capacity crowd.

However, the Knights stepped up the tempo with solid defending and excellent shooting from Kerron Caine, who scored 10 of his team-high 17 points in the second quarter, as they went on an 8-0 run in the final two minutes for a 37-34 lead at half-time.

The Calvin Martin-coached Knights came out firing on all cylinders in the third stanza and had a 51-42 lead with less than five minutes left, forcing Slayers coach Lamar Dixon to call a timeout. However, the rampant Knights extended their lead to 62-49 at the end of the period.

In the final quarter, the Knights' Linton Murray drained two three-pointers to push his team into an 18-point lead at 69-51, with less than three minutes left.

With defeat staring them in the face, the Slayers fought their way back through Kali McCarty, who hit a number of long-range jumpers; Ryan Peddlar, who effected a number of defensive stops and guard Michael Jackson, who drained two three-pointers to bring his team within one point, with less than 1.7 seconds left in the game. But that was the closest they would get as the Knights inbounded the ball and ran off the time.

Good support

Caine received good support from Murray (15 points) and Jovan Bailey with 13 points, nine rebounds and nine assists.

Jackson was the leading scorer for the Slayers with 22. He received major support from McCarthy (18 points) and Rohan Robinson, who got 13 points and six rebounds.

"I am not satisfied about the level of composure and maturity because we made a lot of simple errors in the final two minutes," said Martin.

"I know that first three quarters wouldn't really matter to the (St. George's) Slayers, but it was important for us to make sure that we kept the game very close because they are a fourth-quarter team and once we were leading going into the last period, I was confident that we would win the game," Martin added.

"We are now going back to the drawing board to look at the areas where we made the mistakes tonight and try to correct them and try to build on our positives for the rest of the season," Martin explained.

Meanwhile, Dixon said: "Everything that we did today worked for us. The only problem was that we were giving them too much space to execute on their offence and our players weren't picking up properly on defence."