Stephon
Years ago
Funny 36ers v. Razorbacks report
Got to make it to the game as was in Sydney this weekend so thought I would give a small report.
As the stats show, Jacob Holmes and Oscar Forman were the standouts in a crazy game that had 17 lead changes.
We had never beaten the Pigs in Sydney but that history involved West Sydney teams loaded with great past players such as Rillie, Rucker, Dwight, Mackinnon and co.
I have to confess thinking we would win by 20 given some of the match-ups such as Maher v. Carter, Dusty v. McGregor.
Unfortunately, West Sydney played us tough for almost the entire first half and it was only a decent run by the 36ers during the final 2 or 3 minutes of the half that saw us end up with a 10 point lead that wasn't indicative of how close the first half was.
Highlights of the first half included James Harvey scoring twenty points despite being the focus of the 36ers defence, a crazy Willie Farley three pointer with the shot clock expiring where he just heaved the ball towards the basket that was nothing but net, and a nasty two handed dunk by Oscar in traffic that summed up his night.
Jacob, Oscar, Dusty and Farley were all in double figures at the half.
Third quarter was much more of the same except Adelaide did a much better job of not letting West Sydney get as many offensive rebounds.
It is funny to say after looking at the box score but it was definitely West Sydney's offensive rebounding in the first half that kept them in the game so I'd hate to see what the second half rebounding stats were in favour of the 36ers in the second half. Also ironic that we must have killed them on the boards in the second half but still ended up losing the second half by 9.
Brad Hill also contributed on the offensive boards, two of them leading directly to put backs over the smaller West Sydney point guards.
Adelaide maintained a 12 point buffer towards the end of the third quarter but then West Sydney went on a crazy 16-0 run over the final minutes of the third quarter and the first few minutes of the fourth quarter that saw the Pigs up by four.
It was definitely deja-vu from the Tigers game where a lot of hard work in establishing a 10 point lead was undone with a few minutes of sloppy play.
I am a huge Smyth supporter but I would love it if he called a time out when a team has cut our lead from say 10 to 4 rather than allow a team to get up by 4 before calling time out.
West Sydney played some great basketball during this run and got good support all game from role players such as Carter, Darragh, Clint Reed, Rigby and McGregor who seemed to wake up after a very ordinary first half.
Their new import John Cornette was useful but fouled out at a crucial stage of the game and could of used his rebounding down the stretch.
Harvey was outstanding in the first half but was well 'held' to only eight points in the second.
Watkins gets a tough time from Pigs' fans but they looked very well coached throughout the game and if they had hit their free throws (10 for 23!) they would have caused a major upset.
Once down 4, the 36ers played like a team that had won 3 nail biters in a row and just had this swagger to them like there was no way they could lose.
They were exceptionally cool in the clutch and the 6 that played out most of the final quarter were Maher, Hill, Farley, Holmes, Dusty and Forman.
Holmes in particular deserves credit for his offensive rebounding and decision making in getting the ball back to a guard after getting a board rather than rushing up an ill advised shot. He took good shots all game, made a hell of a lot of great passes and hit a huge three in the final quarter.
Holmes would have had Steve Nash like assists if Maher shot like he normally does as I distinctly remember Holmes getting a number of offensive rebounds, kicking the ball to Maher for an open 15 foot jump shot (which is a lay-up for him) only for it to rim out.
Farley had three second half dunks, a standard Farley open court one hander, a sweet baseline jam, and on one of the biggest plays of the game a huge one hander reminiscent of his dunk on Melvin Thomas last year that gave Adelaide a 3 point lead inside the final few minutes.
The lead changed hands a few times in the final minutes with the teams trading blows.
Maher finally hit a tough fade-away jump shot but Blackburn answered with a tip jam to give the Pigs back the lead.
Adelaide had the ball down one with about 35 seconds to play and the ball went straight to Brett Maher where it would stay.
Maher waited until the shot clock got to about 10 seconds and then he broke Harvey's ankles with a couple of spin moves that resulted in an uncontested right hand lay-up that put us up 1 with 11 seconds to play.
36ers only had one team foul at the time and smartly used their remaining team fouls to waste precious seconds.
Pigs still had 5 seconds when the 36ers had no fouls to give, got the ball to Harvey who got a decent look but thankfully his shot was off leaving the majority of the woeful Pigs crowd that looked lucky to crack 2000 disappointed but me thankful for making the trip!
36ers best were Holmes, Forman and Farley, with Maher coming up huge once again down the stretch.
I will take this opportunity (after Maher has had an off game of 6/20 shooting so as to not jinx him) to point out that Brett Maher is producing career best numbers of 20 pppg, 7rpg and 6apg in what is his 15th season. Truly amazing stuff.
Holmes is interestingly averaging 18 ppg at 55% from the field, 12 rpg and 3 apg in our 3 road games.
In his four home games he is averaging 5 ppg at 18% from the field, 8rpg and 2 apg.
Maybe the discrepancy between his form away as opposed to at the Dome is a question for Fans Corner and I appreciate it is early days but would be good to see Jacob have a big home game soon to show the fans what he is capable of.
Maybe it's the Adelaide rings or just a case of Jacob trying too hard to impress but he is definitely capable of consistently filling out a box score in the manner he did against West Sydney.
Celebrity sighting at the game was NBL Commissioner Rick Burton who has to be concerned with NBL crowds especially in Sydney.
Crowds in Sydney can't be helped with the quality media the teams in Sydney get, summarised by the caption to a picture from the game in today's Sun Herald of Jacob Holmes posting up Blackburn.
The caption read, "West Sydney's Jermaine Blackburn posts up Adelaide's Brad Gerlach"! LOL
Maybe if Gerlach had played in the game then some sort of an excuse could be made but considering Gerlach didn't even suit up for the game makes such an error even more comical.
For an overall summary, I will have to steal a line from Moses and note that the 36ers definitely used up another of there seemingly endless collection of "Get out of jail free cards".
Hopefully, if we have any left, we save some for the play-offs and find a way to get some easier victories during the season.
