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Pagan powers East past Howland
By DAN HINER
HOWLAND
The East High School boys basketball team had the lead for a majority of its game against Howland, but after the Tigers took the lead late in the third quarter, East turned to senior forward De’amonte Pagan.
Pagan scored 28 of his game-high 30 points in the final 11 minutes in East’s 91-73 win over Howland on Tuesday night.
East (9-6, 5-3 All-American Conference Red) went into halftime leading 46-38, but Howland started the second half on an 8-2 run — cutting the lead to 50-46. A 3-pointer by Howland’s Nathan Leventis shrunk the Panthers’ lead to 52-49.
But that’s when Pagan started to go on his run. Pagan hit a 3-pointer with 3:26 left in the third, and after Howland took a 56-55 lead, he grabbed the lead back on a three-point play after he made a layup and converted from the foul line.
“I just felt it. Once I hit a ‘three ball,’ I just kept going,” Pagan said. “I just kept getting my shots up because I felt like I was hitting them.”
Howland (5-9, 2-6) tried to come back in the fourth quarter, but Pagan’s scoring was too much. East outscored the Tigers 28-15 in the fourth quarter, with Pagan leading the way.
Howland head coach Dan Bubon said the Tigers had a rare poor performance on the defensive side of the ball. He said the Panthers were quicker than his players and Howland’s players were unable to stop East in transition.
“It was really all our defense in the second half. If we score 73 points, we should win 90 percent of the time,” Bubon said. “We’ve been a good defensive team most of the year, I just thought that their shooting early, affected the way we wanted to play.”
Howland guards Michael Massucci and Connor Tamarkin led the Tigers in scoring. Massucci had a team-high 25 points before fouling out of the game. Tamarkin scored 18 points and grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.
Pagan said the offense was so explosive because different members of the team were “executing down the floor” by getting open.
East frequently changed its defenses all night and caused some confusion for the Tigers. In the second half, the Panthers switched between a full-court press, zone and man-to-man defenses.
The Panthers forced seven turnovers in the second half. East head coach Dennis Simmons said the team wants to create as much confusion for opposing offenses as possible. He said that would allow the offense to move up and down the court more efficiently.
“We got a little bit better, but the goal in the second half was to disrupt what they want to do. If it’s an up and down game, we think we can win 90 percent of our games if it ends up like that,” Simmons said.
Simmons said the defense is still a work in progress, but said the players are starting to make strides on that side of the ball. He said the team needs to avoid making “silly” mistakes in the future such as unnecessary fouls.
Simmons said Pagan “has been in a slump for a while,” but has always had the potential for a 30-point performance from his starting forward. Simmons said, if Pagan can focus on basketball, he can dominate the game frequently.
“He has that ability to do that every night,” Simmons said. “I’m glad to see him finally get out of that slump, finally playing the way we know he can play.”