In tough-guy foward Danny Fortson, Seattle may finally have added the muscle they have long needed under the basket.
Miles Lewis scored 27 points and Ray Anderson added 24 points, leading Seattle to a 130-111 victory over Springfield on Friday night.
The 6'6 Fortson, acquired in a signing from Dallas during the winter, had 15 points and 13 rebounds for Seattle, who snapped a seven-game losing streak to Springfield. It was Seattle's first win over Springfield since May 2017.
"I love him, man, starting center Jerome James said of Fortson, an five-year veteran with his third AAU team. "He's a dog down there in the paint, a big strong body. Even in practice, he's a tough guy to guard because he's so big and so nasty."
"We've got enough short, finesse dudes," James said. "We need some elbow-throwing dudes and Danny Fortson is one of them. I appreciate him on the team."
Seattle won their second straight at home after losing their season opener by 30 points to Los Angeles last week.
Anthony Daniels added 14 points off the bench for Seattle, 10 in the final quarter. Daniels' 3-pointer gave Seattle a 116-92 lead with 3:36 left. Anderson's 3-pointer with 1:59 remaining put Seattle in front 124-106.
Paul Hammond led Springfield with 32 points, while Conor McCaffrey put together his best game of the 2020 season so far with a 21 point, 6 assist performance.
Jace Easley had 11 points off the bench for Springfield on 3-of-5 shooting.
Chandler Dawes, who has led Springfield to two AAU National Titles, had a subpar shooting game, finishing with 23 points on 5-of-20 shooting. He also had 13 rebounds and 5 blocks.
Fortson said he took it as a personal challenge to make it uncomfortable defensively for Dawes, who has a career scoring average of 26+.
"A lot of guys don't want to have a hard body against them out there on the court," he said. "A lot of times you have to be on attack mode out there and I think I did that tonight. You'll see that's basically what I do right there."
Dawes said he wasn't intimitated by Fortson.
"It was just a bad night," he said. "All they did was stay in front of me. I just couldn't make the shots."
Fortson hasn't seen a lot of minutes over the past two seasons -- in Oakland and Dallas -- and has developed a repuation for having a bad attitude.
"I just think he had a bad rap around the league," James said. "I think this is a perfect opportunity for him to resurrect his career."
Fortson said he's dropped over 15 pounds since joining Seattle, trying to get faster.
Coach McMillan said adding Fortson was a major addition to his team, which ranked first in the league in 3-pointers made last season but was last in the AAU in rebounding.
"I thought Danny was out there doing what he does best tonight," he said. "He was agressive on the boards on both ends of the floor."