NBL Wrap Round 7: The Heritage Dosage

Round seven saw the NBL honour its heritage with all the teams donning uniforms reminiscent of yesteryear, prompting the masses to take a trip down memory lane. There was no James Crawford, Ricky Jones, Butch Hayes or Grant Kruger. No Brisbane Bullets, no Geelong Supercats or Hobart Tassie Devils. Instead we were treated to Andrew Gaze and Steve Carfino with their usual blend of commentary righteousness. Bless the Carfino and Gaze tandem, never an off night, you always know what to expect. 

It wouldn’t be unwise to suggest that the Kings may have performed better fielding their early 90s regulars who were at the game to inspire. After a slow start the Kings toyed with the idea of getting back into the game but promptly fell asleep. 

Cairns seem to get going when their imports combine to become the ‘dynamic duo’. Behind Andrew Warren’s 21 points and Jamar Wilson’s 18 points the Taipans role players filled their roles perfectly. Alex Loughton chipped in with 12 points and Jeff Dowdell spent some time away from the three point line to grab six boards. What Cairns achieve they achieve quietly, make sure you keep an eye on them, that way they won’t surprise you.

Said Coach Robilliard “There’s an issue of team ‘performance anxiety’ playing at home and we have got to get over it, but it’s a characteristic of a young team building trust.” Absolutely right Ian, it must be hard playing in front of those supporters there to cheer you on. But it is these supporters that are growing impatient with the club that frustrates them so much. The core fans have had enough and are calling for changes. Jerai Grant finished with 13 points and 12 boards, Julian Khazzouh had 17 points and 11 boards whilst Ben Magden ended the game with 13 points.

Perth owned this game in the first half, totally schooling the Tigers in every aspect of the game. There wasn’t a shot the Wildcats didn’t like and there wasn’t a shot the Wildcats couldn’t miss. Heading into the main break the Tigers were clearly outdone.

Almost in a twist of fate it was the Tigers who couldn’t miss in the second half. The Tigers could only snigger as Wildcat shot after Wildcat shot rattled around the ring whilst theirs were hitting nothing but net. The Tigers the Tigers threatened to take this game from the Wildcats and the Wildcats gave them every opportunity to do just that.

Perth where very uninspiring in the second half and we are certain they will be the first people to tell you that. Looking a bit like Robbie Dempster, Matthew Knight lead the way for the Wildcats, jump shooting his way to 24 points, Brad Robbins was everywhere in his 13 point, 8 rebound and 5 assist effort and Jesse Wagstaff finished with 13 points. Worrying signs for Perth is that Kevin Lisch and Shawn Redhage finished the game with a combined 11 point effort at 4/20 from the field.

For the second time in as many weeks the Tigers mounted a second half comeback. The good sign for the Tigers is that they managed this triumph with little impact from Patty Mills, who has since abandoned the team to go and play in China. Ayinde Ubaka took charge for 23 points, Cam Tragardh took advantage of Luke Nevill’s slowness for 22 points and Ron Dorsey put the game out of reach with an alley oop and three ball to finish with 18 points.

Fans and fanboys alike will be discussing whether the Wildcats died in the second half, whether the Tigers are the comeback kings or whether Dorsey should have been pinged for the USF on Lisch (for the record, the rulebook says yes). But to settle the score, the ring on the (TV) right side of the cage is ‘obviously’ broken, 66 points scored on that side of the court compared to 102 on the left. Enough said.

The Blaze continued their hot form into Heritage round, burning the Crocs for 12 points. No team high fives like the Blaze, and that is where their power comes from. Stop the high fiving and the Blaze will go cold.

Adris Deleon has changed the dynamic of the Blaze since his arrival. Adris adds energy and dribble penetration to a team that loves to shoot from deep. Deleon lead his team with 21 points. Personally, I would like to see a point guard get and assist. Antony Petrie scored 16 and Chris Goulding finished with 12.

The Crocs were no doubt upset with this loss, this is one game they are sure they could have won. Michael Cedar finished with 14, Jacob Holmes and Eddie Gill 13 apiece and Peter Crawford 12.

At a personal level, the Crocs won the retro jersey battle. The Blaze’s Rollers get up just didn’t feel like the Rollers, the green wasn’t as vibrant as it should have been. The Suns kit looked great. They yellow come up a treat on the TV.

One day you are beating the highly fancied Wildcats, the next day you are losing to the bottom of the ladder 36ers. This is not to discredit the 36ers, I truly believe they are better than their current position on the ladder suggests, it is only a matter of time before they begin to climb.

In what is now a typical trait of the NBL both teams come out of the block running, gunning and putting points on the board real quick. Ironically, it was after half time when the Tigers began to slow down and with fatigue being a factor the 36ers came from behind for the six point victory.

                                                           

Stephen Weigh had the type of game his skill set suggest, Weigh finished with 24 points and 7 boards. Diamon Simpson works well with Daniel Johnson inside, Simpson grabbed 12 boards and scored 18 points and Chris Warren continues to his big shots, scored 16.

I think Patty Mills had already made his decision to ricochet to China. This game was more for Mills than it was his team. Mills launched shots as he was fit on his way to 32 points. Cam Tragardh had 18 and Ronald Dorsey scored 14.  Rebounding has been a problem for the Tigers all season long and it is worse when Matt Burston is sitting on the sideline. The Tigers allowed 10 more offensive rebounds than the 36ers and gave up 8 more second chance points.

What can be said about this game that wasn’t already scripted and expected other than the Taipans holding strong on their home court.

Abercrombie finally decided to grace the leagues fans with some of that splendid potential of his and had more than 20pts in a game with 21pts and 8reb, Darryl Corletto was his sidekick for the night with 15pts of his own seeing as CJ Bruton was having a rest night, the old fella just couldn’t get a point on the board in his 25+ minutes of court time, not something you would hope or expect from one of the most potent scorers ever to play in this league.

Gary Wilkinson was mediocre by his standards so far this year and only had 11pts and 5reb, Cedric Jackson was hampered by foul trouble and couldn’t get into any kind of rhythm before fouling out of the game with 10pts 5reb and 4ast.

The Taipans, known for at most time not being the most offensively potent team in the league could have played a 3 on 3 tournament and almost won it.

Alex Loughton welcomed back some form with 22pts but only 4reb, Andrew Warren chimed in with 21pts of his own.

But it was Jamar Wilson who willed the Taipans to victory with his 20pt 7reb 5ast game, when your 2 best big men have a combined 7 rebounds between them (Crosswhite and Loughton), it’s going to be a long night, luckily Crossy had 7 assists to make up for his lack of any other kind of production.

The Taipans were lucky to hold on and need to thank their lucky stars for this win.

The Hawks, well it’s hard to say this but they just didn’t decide to turn up in this game. If you looked at the box score in a black background with green text, it would look like a feed of the matrix, you would know there was stuff there, but you would just never be able to make anything out, apart from the 11pts from Oscar Forman and the 12pts by Showron Glover, everything else looks like there was a glitch somewhere.

The Wildcats, after the loss from the Friday night where they had control of the game for 3 quarters and let the game slip away were determined not to let it happen again.

Matt Knight is playing some fantastic ball and again started off on fire finishing with 14pts and 7reb, Luke Nevill doing what is expected of him, rebounding well with 8 boards and Cam Tovey starting to come back into some form.

Kevin Lisch has hit a little slump after leading the league in scoring so far this year and had a poor performance by his standards, but it seems Shawn Redhage is picking up the slack with 18pts and a return to form, Brad Robbins continuing to fill in well in the absence of Martin and Jesse Wagstaff proving to be a contributor off the bench.

The Cats can live with the 2 from 4 record after 4 games on the road over consecutive rounds, 3 would have been preferable and was in reach, but it wasn’t to be, now it’s just a matter of making sure home court is protected and a high playoff berth should be a given.

Did anyone else notice Showron Glover standing next to Luke Nevill? lol.

This week’s award goes to none other than Patty Mills and his quick departure for greener pastures in China.

Patty in his time in the NBL brought with him hype that helped to see new fans come out to watch games, the formation of the Ambush Army and some much needed life into Melbourne Basketball.

What Patty probably doesn’t realise is that he is there for the whole season unless he gets cut, so if the NBA comes back, there will be no more 3 goggles in Portland for some time, and also China has a media ban on twitter, what is he going to do in his spare time now?

Nothing could be finer than Patty playing in China…………. unless he feels like having a tweet.

This week’s award goes to almost all the east coast imports, who finally realised they are paid to play as import players and are meant to provide more than just towel waving on the bench.

Everyone decided they would make sure they weren’t the first import to be given marching orders this year and gave great personal performances.

Funny enough the only import to have an under producing weekend was Kevin Lisch, since he has long term contract, the memo that was sent to all the other imports must have been lost in the mail, never mind Kevin, you’ll just have to get back to the top of the NBL scoring list next week.

We’d like to make a special mention this week to our old mate Wortho, and no Wortho, it’s not about the mo.

Wortho’s little man turned 2 years old and we just wanted to say a quick congrats to the Worthington family and hopefully we will be seeing another one in the league someday.