Lightning strike early and often in Game 3

LAKESHORE The Windsor Express look like a team running on fumes.

Too often this season, the Express has played a game where the club has fallen behind by a large margin and then tried to dig out of trouble.

Against many teams this season, the Express has found a way to win more of those battles then the club has lost, but it’s been a different story in the playoffs against the London Lightning.

London jumped to an early lead and scored a 122-97 win over the Express before a crowd of 854 at the Atlas Tube Centre on Thursday. With it, the Lightning lead the best-of-seven Central Division final 3-0 and can end the series with a win in Game 4 on Saturday.

“It was a very tough one,” Express head coach Bill Jones said. “No one expected this for us. What I’m asking our guys is to come back.

“They beat us. They beat us bad. Now, the next time we lose, it’s over for us. That’s the urgency we have to play with.”

Windsor missed its first four shots and the Lightning opened the game with the first seven points, but the Express battled back to take a one-point lead on a Tony Bennett triple on the club’s first possession of the second quarter.

From that point, the Windsor offence went quiet with London opening a 20-point lead in the final minute of the second quarter.

“Sometimes, some teams just outwork you and that’s what happened tonight,” said Express forward Shaquille Keith, who scored 17 points and had 11 rebounds. “They outworked us on the boards and got those extras possessions and that’s how we lost the first two games — rebounding.”

With Warren Ward sidelined by a hip flexor, Jones stuck mostly with a six-man rotation of Juan Pattillo, Bennett, Darren Duncan, Logan Stutz, Keith and Maurice Jones.

“Warren Ward’s a 14-point scorer for us,” Jones said. “He goes out, competes and plays hard and we miss him. We miss that and we’re playing against a good team.

“We don’t have a lot of options at all. Our bench is thin, but we have to man up. I won’t use that as an excuse.”

Windsor chipped at the London lead in the third quarter, but could not cut the lead to single digits.

“Down the stretch, we couldn’t score some key baskets, we were missing a lot of free throws and some layups and that could be due to fatigue, but we’re into the playoffs and anyone can use that as an excuse,” said Keith.

Stutz finished with 20 points while Maurice Jones had 13 points, Bennett 12 points and Duncan and Nick Evans 11 points each.