SHAWNEE, OK – The Potawatomi Fire wont their 45th consecutive home game on Friday, beating the Little Rock Lightning 139-97. The win improved the Fire’s record to 15-1 on the season while Little Rock fell to 6-9.
After a sluggish start in the first quarter, the Fire turned things around after the first media timeout and ended up leading by five after one. In the second quarter, the Fire asserted their dominance, outscoring Little Rock 40-16 to take a commanding 73-44 lead at halftime.
“We got off to a bit of slow start,” said Fire head coach Mark Dannhoff. “Little Rock came out and executed really well but our guys were able to regroup and respond. I thought our bench came in and sparked us midway through the first and helped us turn the game around.”
Newcomer Ke’Tarrious “K.T.” Bouchum led the Fire attack off the bench. In his Fire debut, Bouchum scored a game-high 25 points while grabbing 7 rebounds and dishing out 4 assists.
“K.T. was fantastic tonight,” said Dannhoff. “We knew he was a really good player but for anyone to come in and do what he did in his first game with a new team is special. It really shows you the work he put in this week in practice to learn our concepts and build some of the chemistry with the rest of the team.”
Beyond Bouchum, the Fire had plenty of contributors. Three players, Isaiah Wade, Chuck Guy, and Deshawn Munson, finished with a double-double. Wade finished with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Guy finished with 18 points, 5 assists, 10 rebounds, and 4 steals. Munson finished with 13 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 assists. For Munson and Guy, those were their sixth double-doubles season while Wade recorded his first.
Three other players finished with at least 12 points. Ricardo Artis II finished with 20 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, and two steals. Jachai Simmons finished with 13 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 blocks. Finally, Paul Harrison finished with 12 points, 2 rebounds, and 3 assists.
A full box score is available here.
“It was a balanced effort tonight,” said Dannhoff. “We had a good contributions from everyone on offense and I thought our defense was really good as well. Little Rock can score and we did a good job keeping them from getting too many good looks.”
As a team, the Fire held Little Rock to 42.4% shooting from the field. They also forced Little Rock into 27 turnovers, which ties a team record for most turnovers forced.
Up next, the Fire host the Enid Outlaws on Saturday, May 10th. A win would also be the Fire’s 46th straight win inside FireLake Arena.
To purchase tickets, visit potawatomifire.com/tickets or call the FireLake Arena box office. You can watch a live stream of the game at tbltv.tv or listen live on KGFF Radio (100.9 FM/1450 AM).
To stay up to date with all the latest news and notes regarding the Potawatomi Fire, follow the team on social media. You can follow the Fire on Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
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ABOUT THE POTAWATOMI FIRE
The Potawatomi Fire are the first professional basketball team owned by a Native American tribe (Citizen Potawatomi Nation) in Oklahoma. The Fire compete in the Central Conference of The Basketball League (TBL), a men’s professional basketball league, with roughly 40 teams across the U.S. and Canada. The Fire play their home games at FireLake Arena in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Through their first three years, the Fire have established themselves as the premier franchise in TBL. Along with winning the TBL championship in 2023 and 2024, the Fire organization was named the 2022 winner of the Jim Koch Award as TBL’s Best Ran Business. The dance team of the Fire, the Fire Girls, were named TBL’s 2022 Best Dance Team and Central Conference Best Dance Team in 2023 and 2024.