EAST ORANGE – There was no sense of nervousness in Cassandra (Sandy) Smith’s voice during pregame as she predicted a win. With less than two minutes remaining in the game, Smith reminded me of the prediction during a timeout before her Jersey Express finished off the New York Red Riders 138-110 Saturday night in East Orange.

Smith, coaching her first home game as the interim head coach, described the style of coaching she employed on the Express since taking over the reins.

“On the offensive end, I try to allow them to “play basketball” the more you try to control them, the more you tend to lose players,” Smith said after the game. “I find that if you give them a little freedom, and later go to address them on any facet of the game, they respond better.”

Using an in your face style of man-to-man defense the (Express 6-2) harassed the Red Riders (4-7) into rushed perimeter shots and unsuccessful drives to the rim as Elijah Thorpe controlled the paint rejecting five shots in the first half. A 13-point Express run, spanning the end of the first and start of the second quarters, broke open a tight game and gave the Express a 45-27 lead.

“I just think that we didn’t get in our rhythm, usually we start off exceptionally well. The previous games when we played the Express we had 20-point leads at halftime,” Red Riders head coach Tracy Long said. “Today we came with no fire, no intensity. It was our fault. We beat ourselves. We didn’t protect the ball, no help defense, and not getting out in the open. It was just an overall bad game for us.”

The Red Riders closed the gap to 58-49 with 3:28 remaining in the half but Express guard Ahmad Mosby scored four points in a half-ending run to push the lead back to 73-56. Mosby is one of the new faces on the Express, as they replace the production of former players Samar Battle and Dwayne Howell.

“He (Mosby) is pretty much a pure point guard, so he helps control the floor, he helps on the defensive end and he can play bigger players on defense, so going on, he is going to a tremendous asset to the team,” Smith said.

Antionne (Cat) Morgano led six Express players with 30 points as the non-stop attacking offense produced open looks for everyone. Jordan Palmer followed up his team record 49-point performance with a solid game of that included 25 points.

“Jordan is an unknown phenom, he is an x-factor, he can walk into a gym like he did last week and calmly put up that 49 (Express point record last week), or he will in the same manner give you what you got today,” Smith said. “It’s like pick your poison, but it’s nothing bad about what he is doing. He is still defending, he’s still playing basketball, he’s still scoring. The only difference today may have been his jump shot wasn’t falling.”

Speaking of falling jump shots, the Express had a celebrity player as East Orange High School Girls’ basketball coach Derrick Johnson took the court. Johnson connected on two of his five shots in the contest.

“The fans seemed to like him so I guess he’s going to be here again next week,” Smith said. “At the end the fellas pretty much cleared it out for him to let him work at the end of the game.”

Overall, Smith felt her team put out a solid effort, but more importantly competed for the win.

“They preformed pretty well, they are starting to get close to each other, starting to get used to me so their assignments primarily of the defensive end are starting to come together,” Smith said.

Earl “The Pearl” Monroe is scheduled to attend the next Express home game on January 16, when the Maryland Marvels enter the East Orange Campus High School Gymnasium.

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