Lancers Defense Smothers Nutley

The Livingston High School boys basketball team's offense was seemingly still on holiday break during Monday night's semifinals of the Lancer Holiday Basketball Classic. It didn't matter, however.

Defense took center stage as the Lancers deployed a 2-1-2 full and half-court trap that stymied an even more offensively inept Nutley squad as Livingston prevailed, 32-20, at the Fitness and Wellness Center at Livingston High School.

The Lancers will host West Orange in the final, today at 5 p.m., again at Livingston High School.

"We scouted them (Nutley), and we knew that once we got them stuck in that trap they were going to turn the ball over themselves," said junior forward Sam White.

White was the catalyst on both ends for Livingston as he paced the Lancers with eights points, 10 rebounds and grabbed two offensive boards before drawing a charge in three consecutive possessions of the fourth quarter.

"He's (White) a tenacious worker," said Livingston head coach Dan Cohen. "His shot wasn't falling offensively.  I think he was 0-for-shooting the ball from the outside. But the great thing about Sam is he attacks in other ways."

The Lancers did jump out to a 15-4 lead after the first quarter (9-2 after six minutes), but 10 points came on fast break opportunities off turnovers. They led 20-10 at the half with junior guard Matt Fung in the locker room with nine points. Fung failed to score in the second half, however.

"We've got to shoot at a higher percentage," Cohen explained. "Our guards shooting the ball from three aren't shooting that well, so once we start shooting better I think we'll get more points in the half-court set."

Nutley opened the second half on a 5-0 run as the Lancers fell back into a man-to-man defense, but that was as close as they would come. Cohen put the trap back on, and a White rebound put back combined with a dazzling feed from Fung on a 3-on-1 fast break extended the lead back to nine.

Cohen on why he took off the successful trap: "We were getting gassed," he said bluntly. "We were getting so tired with it I think it started forcing some turnovers on our end. I was just trying to give the guys a break because we gotta' come out and play tomorrow as well, so I didn't want to completely kill them tonight playing back-to-back days."

Livingston got contributions from senior guard Corey Eisen who netted eight points, and sophomore forward Alex Kalmus made his presence felt in the paint defensively with three blocks and three rebounds.

The Lancers were out scored 13-9 in the second and third quarters, but they finished strong—scoring eight of the game's final 11 points in the fourth.

                                            1st    2nd    3rd    4th    Total

NUTLEY (1-2)                 4         6          7         3        20

LIVINGSTON (2-1)       15       5          4         8        32