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The Moncton Magic did just enough to hold off the Halifax Hurricanes and win Game 7 of their NBL Canada semifinal series on Sunday in Moncton.

The Magic watched as a Mike Poole three-pointer at the buzzer rimmed out for an 85-82 victory and a 4-3 series win.

The Hurricanes were slow out of the gate and missed their first nine shots and trailed by as much as 17 in the second quarter.

But Halifax proved to be the much stronger team in the second half and managed to take a five-point lead with five minutes remaining in a back-and-forth final quarter.

The Magic battled back and a Trey Kell jumper staked the Magic to an 83-82 lead with 26 seconds remaining.

The Canes ran the clock down looking for a final shot but Terry Thomas was called for a charge with five seconds remaining. Jason Calliste converted both foul shots for a three-point cushion.

Hurricanes head coach Mike Leslie said he didn’t have a good sight line for the turning-point foul.

“I couldn’t see because I was looking through bodies so I would have to go back and look at it (on tape). It’s a difficult call to make and they had to come up with something and if that was the right call, then it is what it is.”

Leslie contributed the slow start that saw the Hurricanes shoot just two for 18 in the first quarter to being over aggressive.

“I think part of it was we were very over aggressive offensively early on. I think we weren’t patient enough,” said Leslie. “Sometimes we were settling and some times we were dribbling out possessions not getting the ball to the the right spot.

“The shots we got weren’t great shots in the end.”

If they are defending you overly aggressive you nee to move the ball with a pas and not the dribble and sometimds found ourselves dribling too much and I think .

The shooting funk would last another quarter with the Hurricanes making only four of 17 and trailed by 12 at the half.

Momentum changed swiftly in the third period when Thomas caught fire. After scoring only four points in the first half Thomas broke out for 14 of his game-high 26 in the third-quarter.

Poole, who only had a single point at the half, finished with 13 while Rhamel Brown had 10. Both Thomas and Brown had 11 rebounds.

Kell led the Magic with 21 points while Calliste had 13.

In the end, the Hurricanes shot just 33.8 per cent (23 of 68) and the Magic weren’t much better at 34.2 per cent (25 for 73).

Leslie was proud that his team was able to claw its way back into the game

“It was a tough way to start the game but we got all of that back fairly early into the third quarter. We had to expend a fair bit of energy to get there.

“We thought we put ourselves in position to win and as I said about road games all year long, ‘you just want to be in position in the last six minutes to try and win the game’ and we did that.

“Unfortunately we had a couple of shots that didn’t fall and they forced us to turn the ball over a couple of times. At the end they made a shot and we didn’t, so that’s the basketball game.”

The Magic advance to the league championship series against the St. John’s Edge. It’s the first time in four years that the Hurricanes won’t play for the league title.

Leslie said the Magic were full marks for the series victory.

“Hats off to Moncton. They defended very hard, especially early in the game and got us out of rhythm a little bit. I wish them all the best in the upcoming series. They battled hard all season long.”