Brave Thunders beat Altiri Chiba 82 to 74 in the B League on Saturday, October the fourth. The visitors moved from twelfth to eleventh place with the win, while the hosts slipped further down the table after sixty games played. By then both sides had already seen most of the season, though neither had yet reached a point where the standings meant much beyond their current positions.
The result ended a string of close encounters between the two clubs. They had met just the day before, when Altiri Chiba won 99 to 90, and before that the Brave Thunders had taken a 74 to 76 victory in mid-September. And here's the thing about these two — they keep finding each other in tight finishes, and this one went the other way this time.
We had called for the away side to win with sixty-six percent confidence before the game. The prediction came through, though not without the hosts making it competitive. Altiri Chiba held their nerve for stretches and weathered the storm enough to keep the gap within single digits, but the Brave Thunders found the extra bit they needed when it mattered.
Looking at the wider picture, both teams sit in the lower half of the table with forty-one and forty-four losses respectively. To be fair, the points tally says nothing yet — sixty games played, zero points on the board for either side. The season runs long enough that these positions shift without warning, and yesterday's result was one more notch in a long climb.
Altiri Chiba's recent form had looked steadier, with two wins against the Brave Thunders and a draw against Gunma Crane Thunders. But the Brave Thunders responded with wins over Yokohama B-Corcells and a narrow loss to Nagoya Diamond Dolphins. By then the momentum had swung, and the visitors took what they needed from the final minutes to seal the seventy-four to eighty-two scoreline.
