NBL Round 18 Wrap: Up and Ater

Melbourne’s problem with this game is that they made it a shootout. A team that lost two vital pieces of arsenal was never going to outgun a team with as many weapons as the Breakers, though to the Tigers credit they gave themselves every opportunity to make this a contest. 

Cameron Tragardh stood up and gave an inspirational captains effort and was helped along the way by the league’s leading assist and turnover man Cory “Homicide Williams.

Williams tweeted earlier in the week that he was the best assist man in the league, but was rightly advised by the boys from CBAB that he was the best turnover man in the league as well, this was  replied to by @chomicide with the line “….well somebody has to”, touché Homicide, touché indeed.

He and his captain combined for 53 of the Tigers 91 points, Trigger having a season high 35pts and pulling in 10reb to go with it, Homicide with a stat sheet filling 18pts 5reb 6ast and 7 turnovers, if only he had 8 blocks, he could have had an ascending stat line, a very rare occurrence on any stat sheet.

Last rounds bright spark for the Tigers, their young guns Lucas Walker and Bennie “Boom” Lewis were both doing their part of building the rookie wall throwing up almost nothing but bricks, Walker the only one of the 2 with a field goal while Lewis went all Krispy Kreme on his team all of a sudden putting up a big fat donut, wonder if he got a free coffee with that?

There is no disputing the Breakers are the team to beat in this year’s competition, they want to keep their record intact and don’t intend on taking any team lightly, least of all the resurgent Tigers.

On the score sheet, it almost looks the same as every week, with the same names putting up the numbers and being the major contributors to the best record in the league.

Once again, the Breakers were lead by “Captain Kirk” Penney who is the regular feature on the scoresheet, the star shooter was again super efficient in obtaining his 24pts, shooting 8/12 from the field and 5/7 from the 3pt line, playing the role of Mr Spock, his 2^nd in command was the red rocket himself Gary Wilkinson who had 22pts of his own as well as 4reb.

The rest of the command crew set their phasers to run and stun and included CJ Bruton with 16pts, Thomas Abercrombie and Braswell had 11pts a piece with Braswell also dishing out 5 assists

Desperate to end a three game losing streak the Wildcats sashayed off with Jesse Wagstaff and Matty Knight to New South Wales on a road double, first stop Sydney.  The referees stamped their mark on the game early with multiple starting players sent to the bench with 2 early fouls.  With the high frequency of fouls being ‘committed’ no team could get on a roll and take charge early. All up 52 fouls were called in the course of the game, to put that into perspective it is about 1.4 fouls per minute, not something the NBL should be proud of when trying to put an entertaining package out to prospective fans live on OneHD. 

When the fouls weren’t being called Sydney were finding their way to the hoop with ease, the Wildcats defence sieve like at times, with Larry “Colonel” Sanders cooking with all 11 secret herbs and spices and Gilder gliding around the place the Kings kept themselves in the hunt. 

Coach Beveridge sealed the leaky defence at half time and the Wildcats really applied the pressure, forcing 7 more King turnovers and grabbing 13 more rebounds for the game. With the defensive holes plugged the Kings scoring dried up while the Wildcats ran their offence straight out of their defence, Sydney unable to match the blistering Wildcat pace, Perth eventually running away with a 14 point win. 

In largely a collective effort, Kevin Lisch who has arguable been the best Wildcat on the road this season lead the way with a team high 18 points, Cam Tovey, Brad Robbins and Jesse Wagstaff all scored 12 points and Jeremiah Trueman put in a gutsy 10. Without Shawn Redhage the Wildcats need to play as a collective unit if they want to enjoy the fruits of success. 

The Kings were led by their imports, Gilder finished with 21 points whilst Sanders scored 20. Khazzouh pulled in 11 boards but was frustrated on the offensive end shooting 3/11 from the field.  Although this loss ends a two game winning streak it gives the Kings and understanding of the level of intensity and pressure they need to play against if they want to taste victory in the league.

Back to back games, probably one of the dreaded phrases in the NBL, and it seems when teams from the east come west, they get a day’s grace by playing the 36ers on a Friday and the Wildcats on a Sunday in the Doomsday Double, but it seems it only works for teams coming west, not for teams going east, we’re just saying.

After the win over the Kings on Friday, the Wildcats had to back up to play the Hawks in the Gong and after the media coverage over a hugely overplayed earlier season incident, you knew the intensity would be wound up to 11.

The Hawks had not won a game since December and were on a horrendous losing streak, nobody likes another team coming into their building and winning on their home court, and after last season’s grand final loss and the televised “Robbins” incident, the Hawks had some scores to settle with the Wildcats.

Kevin Lisch, once again the Wildcats best player on the road lead the way for the Cats and had 20pts 4reb and 3ast, the only problem was that the only player who bothered to turn up to help at game time was recent injury returnee Jesse Wagstaff who had 10pts and unbelievably only 1 rebound, Andre Brown has been somewhat disappointing in this road trip, the self titled “Beast” has not lived up to his nickname. 

Matt Knight who also returned from injury for his first game the night before in Sydney was kept out for what we believe was some tightness in the injured calf area and did not play was a crucial loss, leaving the Wildcats minus a travelling player and again lacking size with injury replacement Ater Majok finishing his contract and signing with the Gold Coast Blaze.

The Hawks on the other hand came out with fire in the belly and had a point to prove to the rest of the league that they are still in contention and are not to be taken lightly.

Lead by a player who could only be described as this year’s Phoenix, a player rising from the ashes and having a career year statistically, Oscar Forman once again was the lead assassin for the Hawks.

The man formerly dubbed The Big “O” No by CBAB has earned his respect back this year to once again just become the Big “O”, leading the charge, Big Oscar dropped 21pts at 9/10 from the field and 2/2 from 3pt range against the Wildcat defence, he also grabbed 4 rebounds.

He was not alone in leading the good fight though, veteran Matt Campbell and Gary Ervin had 14 a piece, the “T” brothers Tyson Demos and Tim Coenraad had 11pts each and Larry Davidson had a game high 9reb to go with his 9pts, Dave “Uber” Gruber also hit the boards with Larry having 8reb of his own and 7pts.

Every player on the Hawks contributed to the score sheet, and we do mean every player, there was even some DP action from the leagues smallest man, Zac Delaney. 

Delaney scored what we believe to be his first NBL field goal and even got to the foul line, he finished with a career high 3pts, more than a point a minute in his 2 minutes and 30 seconds of court time, and more points than his team mate and counterpart, who also happens to possibly be the leagues tallest player Tim Behrendorff, who had 2pts himself in 5+ minutes of court time.

Have we all just witnessed a Zac attack?

In the Queensland derby that people seem to care about (Blaze rivalries don’t seem to matter) the Crocs ran away with a 7 point victory. These two teams have a long history with each other and are always wanting to come away with the win at all costs. Fortunately for the Townsville faithful the game was far more exciting than the 56 – 51 bore-a-thon the last time these two reptiles met. 

After the Crocs fantastic start Cairns were trying to play catch up basketball but with Alex Loughton sitting on the bench in foul trouble it was always going to be a daunting task. Auspiciously for the Taipans the Crocs couldn’t maintain their high shooting percentage for the whole game, each quarter getting progressively worse.

Heading out of the half time break the Taipans made their charge, the 19 point margin too hard for Cairns to overcome. If the game had run for 8 minutes longer the result may have been different, but in these shorter games it’s a sprint, not an endurance race. 

Daniel Dillon has added some meat to his game, same can’t be said about his gaunt physique. Dillon along with Ron Dorsey both took a lot of shots to lead the way for the Taipans with 14 points each. The Taipans just aren’t themselves when Ayinde Ubaka and Alex Loughton aren’t leading the way. Ubaka has had some quiet weeks lately and Loughton is good when he keeps his fouls in check. 

The Crocs signalled their intentions early and that was to kill the Taipans from the outside. The Crocs tall timber responsible for 32% of the production, instead the daggers came in the way of Peter Crawford and Michael Cedar. Cedar fired a game high 19 points whilst Peter Crawford chipped in with a veteran’s 16. Townsville now sit second on the ladder but their run home is tough, two against the Breakers, two against the Hawks, one each against the Tigers & the Wildcats. That’s ‘gonna’ be tough.

The Man known as Markismus Maximus Worthington III in Germany got dressed for the game but to his disappointment it was in the team polo, Mark will not be playing again this season while he nurses a double fractured wrist. 

The Blaze were far too busy scoring points to notice Mark’s absence, not one of them stopping to ask Where’s Wortho? The Blaze were lighting it up, scoring at almost three points per minute on the way to a league high 58 points in the first half. Adelaide who are not known for their blistering pace were already a long way behind with 36 points. 

The scoring dried up in the second half for the Blaze with their shooting getting worse as the game went on but the 36ers were barely able to chip away at the huge deficit, Gold Coast hanging on for a very comfortable win.

Although the Blaze love to run and gun from the outside it is no question that they are at their best when Ira Clarke flexes his muscle and pounds away inside. Clarke had a slow second half but still finished with 24 points and an alarmingly low 3 rebounds. Sailors in chief James Harvey and Chistopher Goulding although best mates, played second mate to Clark, Harvey with 18 points and Goulding with 15. 

Not a lot better in the rebounding department were the 36ers who grabbed seven as a team in the first half, the lowest in NBL history. Although the 36ers have put up some high scores this season they seem to struggle keeping up with the pace in the barn burners. But we can’t really blame them when their opponent is shooting at 54% from the field and 47% from the land of plenty. Adam Ballinger always seemingly puts the team on his shoulder, Balls Electric finished with 22 points and 6 boards whilst Daniel Johnson who provided little on defence finished with 12 and Brad Hill 10.

There has not been a season in recent history when there have been so many injuries. Mark Worthington is the latest to join the list of the walking wounded. Perhaps what was more shocking was that the Blaze in a desperate search for players signed Luke Kendall. Luke has not played professional basketball in quite some time and it’s been longer since he’s been a decent player in a professional competition.

The masses would like to see Zac Delany get the nod this week for his career high three points in a blowout against the Perth Wildcats, but that would just be giving it to a guy… err boy who pads his stats in garbage time. 

The Blaze take out the CBAB double with this week, asking for change with the signing of Ater Majok. With the seconds on Ater’s Perth Wildcat contract ticking away the Blaze waited anxiously with Ater’s number already typed into the phone. Unable to wait any longer the Blaze pressed the call button four seconds early but the Wildcats were nice enough to release him in time for Majok to play for the Blaze the next evening.

Now Majok does have a lot of shortcomings in his game but with his size and athleticism he is the sort of player that attracts attention; and that can only be good for the league. Ain’t that right Larry?