Petty, Gorgan get payback vs Al Riyadi for third straight win

TEHRAN (Iran) - Revenge is a dish best-served cold as they say, and Gorgan surely had that in the back of their minds after getting back at Al Riyadi, 75-62, in their WASL-West Asia rematch Wednesday night at the Azadi Basketball Hall.

In a complete reversal of their first encounter last December, the home team seized control early before turning on the jets come the final minutes, unloading a fiery 15-6 rally to close the game out in style and split their season series.

The Iranian side have now become one of the hottest teams in the league as they rolled to their third straight win to take the lead in Group A with a 3-1 card, breaking a three-way logjam with their Lebanese counterparts and Al Naft.

Al Riyadi absorbed their second loss in four outings following the defeat, which also spoiled the comeback of Wael Arakji from a one-game absence.

Game heroes: Perry Petty bannered the payback win with 26 points, including 11 each in the first and fourth quarters as he helped set the tone early before coming through with the last key run that brought their gutsy rivals down for the count.

The star guard, who's one of WASL-West Asia's top scorers, also finished with 7 rebounds, 4 assists, and 3 steals with a game-high efficiency rating of 25.

Coming through with big games as well were the bruising tandem of Sajjad Pazrofteh and Antanas Urdas as they flirted with double-doubles.

Pazrofteh finished with 18 points and 9 rebounds on top of 3 steals, while Urdas contributed 12 markers and 8 boards with a pair of blocked shots.

The two delivered at a time the star tandem of Behnam Yakhchali and Mohammed Jamshidi were limited to season-lows in points. The former scored 8 while the latter only had 7, although he added 4 rebounds and 6 assists in the victory.

Turning point: Al Riyadi knocked to within just four from as much as 12 down with 4:15 remaining in the game, but Perry and Rasoul Mosafari put together six unanswered points to make it a 66-56 lead with under three minutes to play.

That mini run proved to be a prelude of Gorgan's strong finish, with Urdas and Pazrofteh helping Perry out for another rally -- a 9-0 run for a 75-59 lead with 14 seconds left, much to the delight of the crowd.

Stats don't lie: Gorgan shot 43-percent thanks to their 19 assists, and dominated all other stats categories -- they scored more points in the paint (44), had more second chance points (15-6), and maximized their transition play with 15 fastbreak points.

STEP AHEAD Player of the Game: Despite the loss, Arakji still earned the fans' nod in the STEP AHEAD Player of the Game poll. He led Al Riyadi with 16 points.

They said: "It was a very good game. That's a very good team, great players, well-coached. We played hard. We were well prepared by the coaching staff. I'm happy we were able to win. We played hard." - Perry Petty, Gorgan

"We didn't deserve to win this game because we didn't execute our plan the right way. It cost us the game. Everything comes for our offense. Defensively I don't think we had a bad game but offensively I think we were very limited -- we missed a lot of free throws and our shooting percentage was very low." - Ahmad Farran, Head Coach, Al Riyadi

FIBA