A strong third-quarter performance fueled the Oita HeatDevils¡¯ 97-88 victory over the visiting Bambitious Nara on Thursday.

Trailing 51-47 at halftime, Oita outscored Nara 26-12 in the third quarter to take a 10-point advantage into the final period.

Devonne Giles led the HeatDevils (20-25) with 18 points on 8-for-13 shooting. Taishiro Shimizu had 15 points and knocked down three 3-pointers for the HeatDevils, who face the Bambitious again on Thursday, plus Saturday and Saturday. Two of those games were postponed in October due to a typhoon.

Oita¡¯s Shuichi Takada also finished with 15 points, Verdell Jones III added 14 points, six assists and three steals and Gabe McCulley scored 14 points. Hiroki Oshiro contributed 12 points and five assists, while Byron Allen had seven points, seven rebounds and three assists.

Joe Chapman paced Nara (14-31) with 26 points on 11-for-18 shooting and Adrian Moss had 14 points and seven rebounds. Tatsuya Suzuki supplied 11 points and 11 assists for the expansion team, Taishi Kasahara netted 10 points and Jamar Abrams added seven points and 11 boards.

League accolades: Rizing Fukuoka forward Reggie Warren, who helped the Western Conference club go 7-1 in games played between Feb. 28 and March 31, is the monthly MVP winner, it was announced on Wednesday.

The University of West Florida alum averaged 15.8 points and 11.1 rebounds in those eight games. (The league counts the Feb. 28 series opener toward consideration for the March award.)

Warren finished with 10 or more rebounds in seven of those contests, and had at least 20 points on three occasions.

The Rizing are 23-21 through Sunday.

In related news, Aomori Wat¡¯s forward Gordon Klaiber was selected as the Lawson/Ponta Weekly MVP winner.

Klaiber had 20 points, including three 3-pointers, and three steals in a 90-75 win over the Shinshu Brave Warriors in Saturday¡¯s series opener. He had 24 points, nine rebounds, three steals, two assists and a block in the rematch, an 82-78 Aomori win.

The Wat¡¯s, a first-year franchise, have won seven of their last 10 games and improved to 23-21 with the weekend sweep. They are in sixth place, the final playoff position, in the 11-team Eastern Conference.

Klaiber, a Fairleigh Dickinson University product, is Aomori¡¯s leading scorer at 16.5 points per game.