BNXT League: NBA player Tate sees Giants lose to Limburg, Ostend defeat Mechelen | Basketball

Defending champions Ostend started Wednesday with an 87-77 win over Mechelen in the semi-final (best-of-five) of the Belgian title play-offs.

In the re-enactment of last year’s final, Ostend led 24-10 after the first quarter, but in the first half Mechelen reduced the lead to 45-39 and in the third quarter (24-25) a point was eliminated. In the final quarter, Mechelen briefly came back within four points, but the Coastal team wouldn’t let the Kangaroos get any closer.

Ostend again put in a strong team performance. Frinz Blegenberg (16 pts, 6 lbs), Pierre Antoine Gillet (15 pts, 6 lbsd), Dusan Djordjevic (13 pts), Trishaun Thurman (10 pts) and Nikola Jovanovic (9 pts, 8 lbsd) were the best. Submit the report. For Michelin, Matias Balenques (23 points, 7 lbs.) and Domaine Lubri (16 points, 4 assists) have more than one return.

Guest of honor in the match against Limburg was Jae’Sean Tate. The American forward played for the Giants between 2018 and 2019 and then returned home via Australia. Since 2020 he plays in the NBA for the Houston Rockets.

Before the match, Tate gave his token throw-in and stood with Antwerp chairman Bjorn Verhoeven and the fans. However, the American was not lucky, because Antwerp fell colorless.

On Wednesday evening, the semi-finals of the Belgian BNXT League Championship qualifiers began. Antwerp hosted Limburg United at the Lotto Arena and unofficially lost 59-77.

Limburg started the match without complexes. Led by Miles Cale and Jonas DelAlio, they went into the locker room with a decent lead (28-39) after limiting the Giants to 9 points in the second quarter. The visitors pressed on in the third quarter and won 17-20 (45-59). The Giants were off the entire game and never got to get back in the game. It eventually became 59-77.

The semi-finals will be played in a “best of five” format. The second match will be played on Friday evening in Hasselt at 8:30 pm.