INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana native Kyle Mangas scored a career high 23 points and the Mad Ants won their fourth straight, topping Windy City 131-97 on Tuesday night.
Indiana hit a perfect 16 of 16 from the free throw line and set a season high with 29 assists. Windy City shot 41.7 percent from the field versus Indiana’s 45.2 percent.
The back-and-forth early game saw Windy City tie the game at 13 with 7:26 to go on a Henri Drell basket, capitalizing on back-to-back Mad Ants turnovers. With 6:15 to play in the first, a Kendall Brown putback dunk pushed Indiana’s lead back to four at 17-13. The Mad Ants would lead by as many as seven in the first quarter and hold a 31-24 lead after one.
An Isaiah Wong three at the 11:01 mark of the second quarter gave Indiana their first double digit lead at 36-24. A Kyle Mangas three with 5 minutes to play in the half extended the lead to 48-35 for Indiana. With 15.6 seconds in the half, Will Vorhees put back his own miss to push the lead to 20 at 64-44. At the halftime break, the Mad Ants held on to that advantage, led by 15 points from Mangas. Adama Sanogo led the Bulls in the first half with 13 points and six rebounds.
Indiana would push their lead to 27 during the third quarter with 6:45 to go on a Brown three pointer. Ben Sheppard’s free throw with 6:24 to play in the third extended the lead to 29, a new season high lead for the Mad Ants. With 4:03 to play in the third, Onuralp Bitim back-to-back three pointers ended some Windy City bleeding after trailing by as many as 37. After the third quarter, Indiana held on to a 100-72 lead.
Indiana ended a nearly four-minute scoring drought at the 10:15 mark of the fourth, but in that time, Windy City had cut the deficit to 24. With 4:34, Oscar Tshiebwe pulled down a defensive rebound that made him just the 10th player in G League history to start his career with six straight double doubles.
Mangas led all scorers with a career high 23 points and eight assists. He was one of seven Mad Ants in double figures scoring, leading Jarace Walker (20), Ben Sheppard (18), Craig Sword (13), Isaiah Wong (12), Oscar Tshiebwe (11) and Kendall Brown (11).
Adama Sanogo led six Bulls in double figures with 21 points (and 18 rebounds). Onuralp Bitim added 14, followed by Chris Clemons (12), Quenton Jackson (11), Justin Lewis (11) and Henri Drell (10).
Originslly posted on gleague.nba.com