PHOTOS: Tyonne Malone, Putnam boys basketball defeat Commerce, advance to WMass Summer League finals

SPRINGFIELD — Relying on just one player — no matter how talented that player is — will get a team in trouble, and Putnam boys basketball's star forward Tyonne Malone is well aware of that fact.

Fortunately for the Beavers, when they needed him on Wednesday, Malone was ready. The rising senior dropped 15 second-half points and finished with 28 in Putnam's Western Mass. Summer League semifinal victory against Commerce, propelling the young squad to a 57-45 win. Malone was everywhere — pulling down rebounds, defending the paint, shooting from the outside, driving to the basket and working his way to the free-throw line — but while he proved up to the task, Malone would prefer to see other players stepping up as well.

"Right now, it's 'Give the ball to Tyonne and go,'" Malone said of Putnam's offense. "I don't want it to be that. It's Putnam basketball, not Tyonne basketball."

The Beavers pulled away from Commerce in the second half. After a floater by Julius McKinstry brought the Red Raiders within two, Putnam scored eight consecutive points, which ballooned into a 24-7 run before the Beavers pulled their starters leading 50-31.

"We just need to make sure everyone is on the same page," Putnam Summer League coach John Toledo said. "It's going to take everybody to make sure everybody's on the same page. If one guy messes up, it's going to mess up the whole flow. If one person falls, get him back up and give him the confidence to do it again. That's what it'll take."

Taelon Martin and Kyle Kearney both chipped in for Putnam, tallying nine and seven points, respectively. Malone said Kearney and guard Luqman Abdur-Rauf will both need to step into leadership roles this season.

"Me, Kyle and Luke have to be leaders — we're all seniors," Malone said. "There's only one junior. The rest of the team are sophomores and freshman....We just have to get in the weight room and in practice as soon as possible."

Martin, just a freshman, has shown the tools to be a contributor immediately during Summer League. Long and bouncy, Martin distributed the ball well on Wednesday, finding teammates for open looks multiple times and knocking down open jumpers. Toledo said that for Martin — who played point guard for his AAU team — the biggest obstacle has been confidence.

"He started off playing shy," Toledo said. "After a while, playing with them more and getting used to the guys, he's been good for us. Everyone on the team shows him love. It helps him get better. It brings him out."

Commerce, the top seed in the Summer League tournament, only had six players on Wednesday and were forced into a 2-3 zone to keep bodies fresh. McKinstry tallied 17 points and knocked down multiple 3-pointers early, but the Red Raiders faded down the stretch.

"(Putnam) came out with a kind of swagger like they were going to win," Commerce Summer League coach Reshawn Buckhannon said. "And of course, that turned out to be the case, but I don't think we went down the way they expected us to. They had to run plays and play defense. They had to accept that we came to play basketball."

Anthony Smith added 11 for Commerce, which — as the summer session wraps up — will look to build on its success last season. The Red Raiders made the 2014 postseason as the No. 6 seed, where they fell to No. 3 seed Chicopee.

"This is a good group of kids," Buckhannon said. "At this age, things look out of hand when they aren't out of hand, and it gets out of hand. I think they could have fought back into it the way we were playing in the beginning, playing team basketball."

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