Saturday 9 November 2013

The Adelaide 36ers held onto the lead to beat the Melbourne Tigers 90-87

In what was looking like a demolition of the Tigers by the 36ers in the first half of the game the Melbourne Tigers came back from a 26 point deficit to make it competitive in the final quarter, behind some hot shooting from Chris Goulding and Mark Worthington.

Scott Morrison started the scoring in the game for the Melbourne Tigers and from the start it was obvious they wanted to go to him a lot. The 36ers were utilising their whole team on offence and were slowly racking up points. Adelaide did a really good job on containing Chris Goulding in the first half with Adam Gibson containing him well and got a steal followed by a big block by Jarrid Frye. With 2 minutes left in the first quarter the Tigers had a 22-11 lead and were playing some excellent defense. Adelaide were dominating on the boards with 15-6 rebounds and the quarter closed 22-13 after Adam Ballinger broke
the drought for the Tigers.

The second quarter was very similar to the first with all of Adelaide working well to notch up the points but the Melbourne Tigers  could not get the ball inside and kept settling with a contested 3 point shot. Adam Gibson showed why he has received the defensive player of the year award in the past as he continued to lock down Chris Goulding in the second quarter. Everyone from Adelaide was hitting their shots with Gary Erving, Daniel Johnson, and Adam Gibson all hitting the 3 ball and the lead ballooned out to 48-25 with two minutes left in the half. Goulding got his first points in the game with 2 minutes left in half but closed the half with 10 points largely behind a tech foul which was called on Joey Wright for a comment to the ref which quickly gave Goulding a 5 point possession.
At half time the score was 53-33 with the rebound count heavily in Adelaide's favour 28-13.
Adam Gibson at half time commented on Goulding's hot streaky shooting "you cant give him the split of a second"

Opening the second half Melbourne still looked to be trying for the long 3 bomb and not hitting but on the other end Anthony Petrie showed them how to do it. Mark Worthington passed up an alley oop to Lucas Walker for the big jam and this where Melbourne got going, but were down 57-39. With the ends switched Melbourne started heating up with Chris Goulding and Mark Worthinton looking like they couldnt miss while on the other end Adelaide couldn't get one to drop and Melbourne were finally getting some rebounds and running it up the floor. Chris Goulding showed off some of his skills off the dribble with a nice smooth drive to the hole. Followed immediately on the other end by Adam Gibson bulldozing his way for a lay up. Adelaide were holding on to their lead but Melbourne were catching up and on the Buzzer Jason Cadee drops a long banked 3 pointed for the 36ers to go into the final break up 75-66.

Mark Worthington kept the Tigers alive early in the final quarter with some nice shooting and the Tigers defence had picked up again. Goulding was heating up again hitting some contested 3 pointers and by 5:30 left in the game the Tigers were back 75-77. Adelaide held onto the narrow lead and with 2 minutes left Adam Ballinger again made a big shot to take the Tigers down by 1 point 84-85. In the final minute in the game JOey Wright had something to say to his former player Chris Goulding and then Goulding immediately followed it with a missed drive. On the other end Gary Ervin made the play of the game with 40 seconds to go he penetrated into the key way and with the whole Tigers team trying to deny him the basket he threads the needle and dished the ball Daniel Johnson for an easy 2 taking the 36ers up 89-84. With only seconds left in the game the Melbourne Tigers were forced to foul on every Adelaide possession and were lucky with some missed free throws to keep them alive 90-87 with the final shot but a huge half way hail mary from Mark Worthington missed the Adelaide 36ers managed to hold onto the win 87-90 after dominating the first half.
Gary Ervin post game said "Melbourne, thats a tough team. Goulding and Wortho are the leaders of that team and when they got hot if was lucky we were up 20 to weather the storm."
"thats the difference with this Adelaide team to last years team in every game this year that has been close we have gotten the win."
Gary Ervin hit the nail on the head with that one and it could be largely due to his influence and late game heroics that have secured Adelaide several of their wins so far in the season.
Mark Worthington top scored the game with 28 points followed by Chris Goulding with 23 and the always consistent Adam Ballinger with 16
For the Adelaide 36ers Gary Ervin finished with 21, Daniel Johnson 19 and Adam Gibson with 13


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