The Cairns Taipans returned from their less than stellar performance in New Zealand to post a hard fought 86-75 win over Adelaide Saturday night. The game was the last of several exciting contests in the opening round of the '09-'10 NBL season.
The teams were neck and neck through the first half with Cairns going to the locker room up by two. The Sixers were in the middle of a third term hot streak when import John Gilchrist went down with a leg injury. Adelaide held a five point advantage at the time of the injury that was quickly pounced on by the Snakes. Gilchrist made a cameo appearance early in the fourth term and Adelaide surged to a one point lead before Julien "Skip" Mills, Phill Jones and Dusty Rychart combined to score 17 of the final 21 points for the Cairns crew allowing them to pull away for the win.
Cairns were well served with a hard nosed defensive effort on Adelaide star Adam Ballinger who was held to 7 points/7 rebounds.
Taipan leaders were Phill Jones (16 points), Gary Boodnikoff (16 points) Julien "Skip" Mills (16 points), Dusty Rychart (10 points/14 rebounds/6 assists) and Ian Crosswhite (12 points/5 assists). The 14 rebounds by Rychart put his NBL career total over 2000. Gichrist finished with totals of 20 points, 10 rebounds and 6 assists with support from Matthew Burston (11 points/15 rebounds) and Jacob Holmes (10 points).
In Round 2, Cairns will host Perth on Saturday night and Adelaide will host the New Zealand Breakers on the same night.
My first round predictions held true to form with only Perth keeping me from a perfect start. There will be more NBL stuff with this weeks round kicking off on Wednesday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment