PORTLAND — Despite overcoming three 10-point deficits, the Maine Red Claws were eliminated from the opening round of the D-League playoffs with a 123-117 loss to the visiting Canton Charge Thursday night.

Coty Clarke led the Red Claws with 28 points while recently-assigned Jordan Mickey scored 26.

Canton’s Quinn Cook led the game with 31 points while John Holland scored 27.

Canton jumped out to an early 11-2 lead in the first quarter.

Poor shooting along with shaky defense hurt the Red Claws in the opening 12 minutes, with Maine only shooting 33 percent from the floor.

Thanks to nine free throw points in the final minutes of the first, Maine managed to pull within five heading into the second.

The Red Claws continued to climb their way back in the second thanks to consecutive three’s from Coron Williams and James Young.

At the 8:50 mark, Maine took its first lead in the game jumping ahead 35-34.

The Charge would go on a 15-7 run late in the second to gain a 57-49 lead at halftime.

Canton would jump to another offensive outburst in the third, and within the first few minutes gained its largest lead of the night at 13 points.

Once again, the Red Claws chipped away at the deficit throughout most of the third quarter. Thanks to another big 3-pointer from Williams, Maine retook the lead at 84-83.

Canton fired back and took an 85-84 lead into the final period.

The Charge began the fourth by going on a 15-7 run and continued to lead the game throughout the opening half of the fourth.

Omari Johnson scored two 3-pointers, followed by another by Marcus Thornton to give the Red Claws a 105-104 lead late in the quarter.

Although Maine nearly completed the upset, Canton would get two late 3-pointers from Holland to put the game out of reach in the final minute.

Maine coach Scott Morrison felt that his team left a few too many plays on the floor.

“That’s something you instill in the players in the regular season. In the playoffs you can’t take a play off, you can’t slack off or it will come back to haunt you,” said Morrison. “That was actually the last thing I said to the team, that if there was anything to take away from this week it was that every play counts and it’s not just a cliché.”

Morrison was also proud of his team’s fight during the contest and almost completing the comeback.

“I knew we were capable of it… its a long season so sometimes you don’t see it. We had guys playing out of position, we played some lineups that we haven’t played all year. I was really proud of the guys for not giving in and going for the win, we just came up short to a really good team,” said Morrison.

Despite the loss, Morrison was proud of his team throughout the course of the year.

“If you were to say we would win 31 games and win our division at the beginning of the season I would have took it but I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Morrison.

Looking ahead, Morrison sees Thursday’s loss as a learning opportunity for his young club.

“It was a good season for us for sure, we caught a couple of bad breaks down the stretch with injuries. I didn’t say too much to the guys after, I just said I was proud of the effort in the second half. It wasn’t our best game, but just try to remember a couple of learning points and move on,” said Morrison.

— Sports Staff Writer Alex Sponseller can be reached at sports@journaltribune.com or at 282- 1535 ext. 323. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.