Hoops

Breakers vs Wildcats, Game 1

Henry played fairly good defense against some pretty good offensive players. He got some rebounds and boxed out, job done. He was never expected to come out and score 15 points, just play some defense and hustle after rebounds which he did, NZ have plenty of other guys that can score although Henry is capable of knocking down the 3 ball and also has decent hops.

Henry is normally a good spot-up shooter from the perimeter, and was obviously forced to play far more minutes than usual last night with Abercrombie out, but yeah he didn't handle the extra load too well.

He's still better than Williamson
:/

Casey called the game great!

Well done mate!

If you don't like the commentary you can always use the mute button on your remote.

Absolutely phenomenal game to watch and even better when you have no allegiance to either team!

Kevin Lisch showed in the second half why he is the MVP and Cedric Jackson showed why he's the best all round point guard in the league. Some of the passes he made, falling or with the shot clock winding down were incredible.

Everyone expected the match up between the guards to be the most exciting and it certainly didn't disappoint one bit however a little surprisingly the combination of Redhage, Knight and Nevill vs Vukona, Wilkinson and Boucher was almost as good!

The referees were fantastic all game IMO, called the game with the right amount of physicality for the two teams and for Grand Final basketball, however, one blunder could well have cost Perth the game. With seconds left in regulation Vukona had the ball on the Perth baseline and was inbounding. He certainly could've been called for 5 seconds but in order to get the ball in took two steps to the right and launched it to half court which lead to Damian Martin diving on the ball and rightfully being whistled for his fifth and final foul. Beveridge was furious and rightfully so. Had this been called we might be talking about the game differently.

The NZ commentators do make my ears bleed. Whether i'm just accustomed to Carfino, Heal and Gaze I don't know but they are painful too listen too! Actually lead me to have some bias towards Perth!

says you. The television viewer numbers per game in NZ would suggest otherwise.

I like the Mulls and Frank Combo but would love to see Gaze and Frank with Mulls doing the court side stuff. The best things about Frank are that he makes up words and uses them every week and does not think before he opens his mouth, makes for some laughs.

I prefer NZ's commentating combo to Perths Lachy & Ronaldson. I can't stand those two!

Actually, like Isaac said, Gaze + Frank would be entertaining, throw in Heal as well. That's the better combo.

Exceptional game with everything especially passion. I agree that the Lisch Vs Jackson matchup was great to watch and I also thought the refs did a standup job of officiating what was always going to be a physical encounter.
I would love for NZ to win it in Perth.

The 24 second and 8 second rule seem thouroughly
successful at speeding the game up.
Me . I'd knock off a coupla time outs and tell players just to go to the line , rather than have other little timeouts there.
A great game and at 10pm I was feeling pretty good,
might've been ill at ease after midnite , wanting them to get on with the game , rather than stop.
Perth started pretty good and Bruton came off the bench . NZ looked a little better with Bruton on.

One hell of a game I couldn't go to bed and I'm suffering for it this morning.
This is why I love the game.
It was hard fought and great to watch.
I'm leaning towards Perth but Breakers still have CJ who just knows how to win.
Pity I have to wait a week for game 2 bring it on.

Excellent game, well worth staying up for. It can be great watching two excellent teams going hard at it when you don't have a vested interest in the outcome.

I did go to bed thinking through one of the hardest questions around, 'Who is the bigger flopper - Redhage and CJ Bruton?' Last night, for mine, Redhage. He actually managed to flop in an off-the-ball when he was posting up CJ! Great to see the umpires not falling for it either way.

As for yesterday's thread regarding whether 'clutch' exists - yes it does and its name is still CJ Bruton. Have to admire how he can keep getting it done.

Gritty game, huge momentum swings.

its appearing everywhere, i'd say thats it because they also list it as "National basketball league" which obviously Knox isn't.

Not looking good!