NBL 2012/13 Round 18 Wrap: Twice the Reptile, Twice the Rumble

Perth Wildcats 73, Adelaide 36ers 67

Though the 36ers sit on the bottom of the ladder they have seen a serious road block in the way of the Wildcats quest for the minor premiership; and

when the Wildcats finally kicked it in to gear it felt like that speed bump was going to be a very small one.

Through Daniel Johnson, the 36ers gave it the old fashioned ‘heave-ho’ and began to swing the pendulum back, but not if Matty Knight had his way. Knight banged and bullied his way inside against his taller, but weaker opponents and at times singlehandedly kept Wildcats nose in front.  Adelaide’s decision to bring in Scott Christopherson mid-season is a confusing one given his lack of playing time, instead of offering game time they must have offered a paid vacation.

The 36ers made late charge but the Wildcats countered and made some tough plays at both ends of the court. The Johnson led one trick pony 36ers were just too weak. Johnson stood alone for the 36ers with 22 points, but was disappointing on the glass as was Luke Schenscher. Interesting to note that the ‘Towers of Flour managed only five combined boards all evening.

Matty Knight muscled his way for a team high 21 points and whilst his 4 boards wasn’t that impressive, Greg Hire’s 14 boards were. Kevin Lisch added 15 and Jesse Wagstaff came off the bench with 14 points.

 

Tigers Defeat Hawks, 77 – 70

The Tigers caught the Hawks napping and ran out to an early lead, making life tough for the Hawks and though the score didn’t favour the Hawks fans they were treated to Jonny Flynn and Adris Deleon going head to head. Flynn finished with not only the win but with 23 points and 8 assists whilst Deleon came to life in the final quarter scoring 10 points to finish with 18 points, 5 assists and 4 steals.

Oscar Forman’s 17 points and 11 rebounds was inspiring but outside of Larry Davidson’s 10 points there was little else to for the Hawks to get excited about. They now find themselves sitting outside the top four needing to dig deeper than they already have if they want to make the playoffs this season.

On top of Flynn’s 23 points, Chris Goulding added 18 and Seth Scott scored 13 points. The Tiger’s are finding some confidence at the right time and how find themselves in the top four primed to make a charge. They are finally gelling as a unit, should the other teams be scared?

 

Breakers beat Kings in OT, 96-94

Darnell Lazare gave the Kings dome home when he put in a Ben Madgen airballed 3 pointer with a few seconds to go in regulation cutting the deficit to 2 points. With the inbounds count getting high the Breakers inbounded the ball to Mika Vukona, probably not the smartest decision, but Vukona managed to hit 1 from 2 before Darnell Lazare rebounded the ball off Corin Henry’s deliberately missed free throw to force overtime.

CJ Jackson foolishly span into traffic, the result being a terrible shot. Vukona, ironically went 1 from 2 from the line again before James Harvey erupted the crowd tying the game with one from deep with 4 seconds to go before Jackson banked a baseline drive over an outstretched Darnell Lazare. You can’t help but think that if Lazare was another inch or two taller, Jackson’s shot would have been sent into the stands.

This is the second time that Jackson’s last second efforts has handed the Breaker’s the win. The first being when the refs overlooked an out of bounds violation against the Crocs in round 2, but in any even event experience at winning the close ones will be vital down the stretch when the going gets tougher.

Jackson put on a near triple double effort  scoring 24 points, grabbing 12 boards and dropping 7 assists whilst Alex Pledger broke his spell scoring 18 points and Darryl Corletto chipped in with 12 points. Darnell Lazare finished with 25 points (10/13 from the floor) and 11 rebounds whilst Corin Henry scored 22, Ben Madgen 17 and James Harvey finished with 16 points.

Crocs hang on against Taipans, 111 – 108

With a scoreline resembling a game from the golden era of basketball, the clash of the 2 teams from the top end of Queensland dubbed “The Reptile Rumble” was a high octane offensive explosion, even if it took 2 overtimes to score the 219 combined points.

Gary Ervin and Peter Crawford were in the zone and had 58 points just between the 2 of them, double figure outings from Todd Blanchfield, Michael Cedar and Luke Neville were the remainder of the contributors on the offensive end.

Jacob Holmes returned and showed he is still the Crocs top rebounder with a game high 10, Neville, Crawford and Blanchfield also helping the rebound magnet Holmes.

Amazingly, even though they lost, the Taipans were better in almost every statistical category apart from steals, they shot a higher field goal and 3pt percentage, lead on the boards and had an equal number of assists, how they managed to let this one slide we can’t understand.

Alex Loughton set the tone with his all around game recording a double double on the night, Jamar Wilson was once again spectacular and lead the scoring for the Snakes, even providing what could possibly be a top 10 play of the year, but that’s nothing new for Jamar.

The snakes had balanced scoring efforts and had 7 players in double figures, something not many would believe would happen in a Taipans team not known for being the most efficient team when it comes to offence.

Peter Crawford must have been feeling the love we gave him throughout the week with his own killer wallpaper, nothing better than seeing yourself immortalised and giving you inspiration to have a player of the week award winner type of game, not a problem PC, we were happy to do it, you can send us the beer in the mail.

Tigers double the 36ers woes, 84 – 71

For a team that plays in the city of churches, it seems the 36ers haven’t been doing enough praying when at home, going down twice this weekend and cementing themselves at the bottom of the NBL ladder.

Daniel Johnson was again was the only shining light for the 36ers, having another 20pt 10+ rebound game, living up to the expectations for him and putting himself in contention for a future spot on the Boomers.

Other than Johnson, the 36ers were nothing less than mediocre, shooting a dismal 16% from beyond the 3pt line and just not providing the interior defence expected when you have a team compiling of 2 7 footers.

The Tigers however played an exceptional game and have been going from strength to strength in recent weeks through the play of Jonny Flynn and Seth Scott.

Scott once again had a double double and provided a sensational dunk worthy of a top 10 play of the year, Flynn and Adam Ballinger controlling the tempo of the game and providing Scott with help in leading the Tigers to victory.

With the Tigers on the up and up and having the Wildcats on the back end of a back to back weekend, this could be the measuring stick for them to see if they are a legitimate shot to do some damage in the playoffs, but with Perth in form this is going to be a task not only to see if they are capable, but also if they are worthy.

 

Can’t Buy A Damn Thing Award

This week the award goes to the NBL and their website writer Thomas Woodgate.

While we never like to criticise a fellow writer or journalist (well it’s OK because we aren’t really writers or journalists anyway so it doesn’t count) whoever edited the article made one fundamental flaw of forgetting that NBL and hoop guys take their blogging and writing very seriously and will scrutinise any and all errors that go on a website for a sport they so love.

Woodgate’s article indicated a 96 – 64 final scoreline where the final score was actually 96 – 94, whether that is an issue for the editor or the writer themself, regardless, it was noticed and provides proof we hoopsters do actually read what you write and don’t just look at box scores and cool pictures.

5 minutes of proofing to check your scores next time could prevent you ending up on our awards list, all writers beware, the hoopsters are watching and the CBAB boys will give you an award and a mention in cyberspace if warranted.

Now, feel free to pick the living day lights out of our spelling and grammar. We are sure you will find them (Here’s a starter, we spelled “Nevill” incorrectly.

Gimme My Change Award

It’s a tough one this week, during the week you saw the release of the wallpapers for both of these players and coincidentally both of them had monumental games.

Jackson once again coming dangerously close to a triple double and being dubbed Cedric “The Entertainer” Jackson by us and Peter “PC” Crawford also having an epic game after seeing and loving his wallpaper.

But as we can’t give the awards to ourselves, we will give it to our newest CBAB Wallpaper alumni, great game guys, but your wallpapers are done now so you have to hope whoever we do next isn’t on the team you’re playing.