Antoine Mason was not going to be denied Wednesday night at the Scotiabank Centre.
The Halifax Hurricanes' leading scorer went to work right from the first possession and did not let up until he made the pivotal bucket in the dying seconds. He finished with 43 points on 14-for-19 shooting from the field in an important 120-118 win over the Island Storm.
"We needed it bad," Mason said of the win. "We just have to get better at our fourth quarters. And the third quarters too because we always start off slow in the second half. I've got to take that upon myself to get us going like I did in the first half.
"We've just got to keep pushing and getting better on defence every day and get better at executing. It's a long season but we can't afford to lose any more games."
There were no big leads either way throughout the game but there were a couple of key swings. The Hurricanes took some momentum and an 11-point lead into the half but let it all get away with some loose play to open the third quarter. Halifax head coach Mike Leslie called a timeout about three minutes in to get his group settled again and the reset made all the difference.
The Hurricanes tightened up at both ends of the court and, from there, the teams traded baskets until a pair of free throws from Halifax's C.J. Washington clinched it with 5.8 seconds left.
"He shouldn't have to waste his timeouts like that," Mason said. "Like I said, I wanted to take it upon myself to be more aggressive and just be more vocal at get people going."
Washington finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds and Ta'Quan Zimmerman came off the bench to contribute 24 points, including six three-pointers.
Alex Campbell led Island with 29 points, Antwon Lillard added 19 and Jonathan Loyd and Lewis Diankulu had 18 each.
But as much as both teams got solid contributions from a variety of players, no one came close to doing what Mason did. He set the tone with 16 points in the opening quarter and never stopped pouring it on.
"The best thing is we had a week of practice and during that week I really worked on certain things, executions and just perfecting my craft," he said. "I'm a gym rat and I love basketball so it's good when you put that work in and you see the results on the court."
From a practical standpoint, the win is huge because it improves the Hurricanes' record to 4-9 and inches them closer to moving out of the division basement and catching the Storm (5-9) for third place. But more importantly, the character way they got the result was even more important because it helps build more cohesion after a rough start to the season.
"We have the right people to do it, we just have to do get it done now; that's what it comes down to," Mason said. "We have the right talent here and we just have to be some dogs out on the court. If we're up 10, we have to push it to 20. We can't let teams come back and that's the next task that we need to do for the season. When we're up, we've got to step on teams and keep pushing it."
The Hurricanes now head to Ontario for their next two games. They open on Friday against the Sudbury Five and then face the London Lightning on Sunday.
"We didn't play well against both of those teams last time so we'll see," Mason said. "Every game is a new game and we've got to take it day by day but we also know we have to keep it going now. We'll focus on the first one against Sudbury and then go from there."
