Townsville has a great chance of knocking the top-seeded New Zealand Breakers out of the NBL finals after an upset 99-82 first semi-final victory in Auckland.
The Breakers could not overcome a strong Crocodiles defence in the first of the best-of-three semi-final series and were blown away with hot shooting by the visitors in a 30-18 third quarter.
The Breakers will now have to repeat last year's effort against Perth of scoring an away victory in their second semi-final to have a chance of repeating their 2011 title.
The Crocodiles made a quick start, but the home team held firm and a three-pointer in the last minute by Leon Henry took the Breakers to a 21-19 lead at quarter-time.
Seven straight points after the break took the Crocodiles to a 26-21 lead, though the Breakers quickly replied with a seven-point run of their own.
The Crocodiles stayed in touch for the rest of the quarter, and a three-point play from bench player Elvin Mims helped the Crocodiles take a 44-41 lead into the half-time break.
There was only one team playing in the third quarter.
Jacob Holmes was strong at both ends of the court, leading the visitors to 30 points, while the Breakers could not get any momentum offensively and were down 74-59 at the end of the quarter.
The locals tried to get going in the final quarter but were always playing catch-up and now face having to win in Townsville if they are going to make the final.
Mims, Holmes, Eddie Gill, Peter Crawford and Luke Schenscher all got into double figures for the Crocodiles, with Holmes and Schenscher also making a big rebounding impact.
"As good as it is to win one, you need to win two before you can actually say you've done anything," Crawford said.
Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis said it had been difficult to get the team going in the week leading up to Friday's game and they needed to improve their intensity to make it to the final.
"We didn't play to our normal level tonight," he said.
"I don't think that was a Breakers-style performance and I think we'll play better on Thursday."
The Crocodiles led by three at half-time but a 30-18 third quarter by the visitors forced the hosts into catch-up mode in the final quarter and they were unable to respond.
"I think we executed our game plan about as well as I could hope for, at both ends of the floor," Crocodiles coach Paul Woolpert said.
"We did a good job of executing at the offensive end and getting good shots and I think that helped take away their transition game."
AAP
Tags: sport, basketball, nbl, new-zealand, townsville-4810 First posted March 30, 2012 20:26:26
No comments:
Post a Comment