In a sense, it was a typical fashion of basketball. One team build a huge lead early, but the other came back with lots of determination.
American forward Alpha Bangura had a team-best 15 points and the youngsters, guard Shinsuke Kashiwagi and forward Kosuke Takeuchi followed with 14 and 10, respectively, as the Aisin Sea Horses grabbed a hard-fought 67-57 win over the Hitachi Sunrockers in the opening match of the brand-new Japan Basketball League at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium on Thursday night.
"We didn't play a good game today," Aisin's veteran guard Kenichi Sako said after the game, which was attended by 5,746 spectators. "But we won anyway. It's not that bad when you have things that you fix for your future games."