Tyler Legacy’s Ja’Corian Oes, Jayden Jones and Gage Nuckolls. (Brandon Ogden/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

Kyle Smith wanted to see his team start fast on Tuesday night in a District 10-6A home contest against Royse City.

A 13-2 run during the final 4:09 of the first quarter and an 18-point halftime lead helped spark a 70-54 victory for the Tyler Legacy Raiders inside Tyler Legacy Varsity Gymnasium.

“We came out ready to go right from the get go,” Legacy head boys basketball coach Smith said. “We started the last few games slow, so that was good to see. When you make shots early like we did, that makes everything else easy.”

“I would say we just came out with better energy than we’ve been starting with the last few weeks and just getting off to a good start in the first quarter as we needed to,” senior Ja’Corian Oes said.

“I feel like it was our pre-game during the period, our coach being on us about not taking it serious, and today we did,” junior guard Gage Nuckolls said.

The Red Raiders were a perfect 3 of 3 from 3-point range in the first quarter — all from Jayden Jones and 6 of 7 from downtown in the first half as Jones went 4 of 4 from deep. Oes was 6 of 7 from the field in the first half and 2 of 2 from the free-throw line, scoring 15 points before the break, and Jones had 13 first-half points.

“We shot it really well tonight,” Smith said. “It makes everything easy. Oes got it going early. Jayden was 4 of 4 from three in the first half. When those guys make shots, it makes us a really dangerous team.”

We got up a lot of good shots in practice and earlier today in shootaround,” Oes said. “We went 100 percent through the walkthrough, and that’s a big thing to get off to a good start.”

Jones hit his three triples consecutively in the first quarter to turn an 8-7 lead into a 17-7 leead. Legacy led 21-9 after the first quarter.

The Red Raiders were able to build their lead to 39-21 at halftime.

A 13-6 start to the third quarter pushed the score to 52-27, and Legacy’s lead was 57-34 after three quarters. Up 68-55 with less than four minutes left, Royse City was able to cut into the deficit with a 10-2 spurt in garbage time.

But for the most part on Tuesday, Legacy’s offense was clicking on all cylinders — shooting 61 percent from the floor and 66.7 percent from 3-point range — and the Red Raiders were locked in on defense. Royse City did own a 22-9 advantage on the offensive glass, but that was partly due to the Red Raiders missing just 15 shots in the contest. The Bulldogs missed 43 of their 64 attempts — the Red Raiders attempted just 41 shots — and finished 32.8 percent from the field. Royse City was 3 of 17 from 3-point range (17.6 percent).

Oes finished with 19 points, three rebounds and three assists for the Red Raiders. Jones had 15 points and eight rebounds. Nuckolls had 10 points, nine assists and four rebounds.

Other scorers for the Red Raiders were Josh Hall 9; KJ Cyres, Zyere Ceasar and JP Rainer all with 5; and Tyler Henry and Bryson Perkins with 1 each. Rainer had five rebounds and five assists, and Hall blocked two shots.

Jammel Ward and Dylan Bookout led Royse City (10-14, 3-4) with 10 points each. Bobby Reynolds III, the son of Tyler High head girls basketball coach Bobby Reynolds, finished with 6 points for Royse City.

Legacy (17-12, 5-2) will play at Longview at 7:30 p.m. Friday.