NORTH BERWICK — Sitting at 3-7 and just behind 4-6 Noble in the Western Class A Heal Point standings for the 11th and final playoff spot, the Biddeford boys basketball team knew Tuesday night’s game with the Knights would be an important piece of the puzzle for any potential postseason berth.

And from the opening tip, the Tigers played like it, using a balanced offensive attack and feisty defensive effort to seize a critical 64-45 win at Noble High School Gym. It was the largest winning margin of the year so far for Biddeford, which after losing five straight have now won two on the trot, and his team’s solid all-around play in what was essentially a must-win game pleased Tigers head coach Mike Fecteau.

“We’re starting to play some good basketball, we’re starting to hit some shots and put it together,” he said. “We played some really good defense in the first half and the second half got a little sluggish but it’s a win. It’s a great win. That was a team that was ahead of us.”

Nick Leblond led the Tigers with 20 points and played lockdown defense in the second half on Noble standout Adam Della-Piana, while point guard Cam Nadeau hit three 3-pointers and totaled 12 points.

One game after scoring a season high 19 in a 70-55 win over Gorham forward Matt Cote also chipped in 12 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

“Nick had a great game,” Fecteau said. “He just comes to play every game, he does it on the offensive end. We were getting the ball to him in the post because he’s a good back to the basket player. And we’re getting scoring from different kids. Matt Cote had another good game and Cam Nadeau was the key for us hitting three threes tonight.”

Cote started off the scoring with a jumper to give his team a 2-0 lead that they’d never give up, and the Biddeford held an 11-8 edge after a slow and slightly sloppy first quarter. 

But the Tigers took flight in the second eight minutes as the game opened up, with Cote and Nadeau threes and a pair of Leblond buckets in the paint stretching the advantage to 23-14 with 5:30 to play in the quarter.

Another Cote three extended the lead further, and after the Knights closed it to 30-22 in the final minute Nadeau was on target from deep again just before the buzzer sounded to finish off a 22 point second for Biddeford, it’s second highest output in a quarter this season, and make it a 33-22 scoreline at the half.

“We got our shooters free and hit some big shots and that was a big quarter for us,” Fecteau said of the second quarter. “We were patient. We moving the ball and when we had the opportunities to run we ran.

“And I think it happened through defensive pressure on the other end. We’d force them to turn the ball over and then transfer that into points. So that quarter was big for us and the defense was the reason for the scoring on the other end.”

Della-Piana’s 13 first-half points were the only thing keeping Noble in the game, and after spending the first half on Grayson Waterman, the Knights’ primary 3-point threat, Fecteau moved Leblond on to Della-Piana at the start of the second half. The switch worked as Leblond shut down the Noble forward, not allowing him to score for the first 13 minutes of the second half as the Tigers pulled away.

“We’ve known he’s a good player and our coaches do a good job putting a scouting report in and we knew what we had to do,” Leblond said of his defensive effort on Della-Piana. “Good defense leads to good offense and that’s what was the turnaround in the game.”

“Nick’s a great defensive player and he meets the challenge,” Fecteau added. “At first we put him on Waterman and I don’t think that kid took a shot in the first part of the game. And then we put him on (Della-Piana) when we had to.”

Leblond took over the game at the other end too, scoring nine points in the third quarter as Biddeford pulled away, leading 48-32 at the end of three and going up by as much as 23 in the fourth before taking the 19-point victory.Coupled with the 70-point game against Gorham, Tuesday night’s 64 points means the Tigers have produced their two best offensive performances of their season in the past two games. Leblond credited the team’s recent offensive production to a variety of factors.

“We’re were working hard, playing at the correct speed and increasing the tempo and it’s leading to wins,” Leblond said. “Every win’s a big win. I don’t think we come into any game valuing any one more than the other. If we show up mentally we’re a good team.”

Biddeford will look to keep the mini-run going when it heads to Scarborough on Friday night for a 7 p.m. showdown with the 6-5 Red Storm, who beat the Tigers 60-50 back on Dec. 29.