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The South Dragons defeated the Melbourne Tigers 93-81 in Game 1 of the National Basketball League Grand Final series. The Tigers must have been exhausted after making the arduous journey across town to Hisense Arena, as they allowed the Dragons to win the match in the fourth quarter, with a 33-18 effort.
At this point in the post-season it is worth reminding fans and pundits alike (including this one) about the outrage before the season, as the Melbourne Tigers "stacked" their roster with the starting lineup of David Barlow, Sam Mackinnon, Chris Anstey, Ebi Ere and Rod Grizzard. It quickly became apparent as the season went on, that a team with a small forward (Barlow) at point guard and the world's biggest shooting guard at centre, was not going to be the runaway favourites that everyone had envisaged.
Late in the season the Tigers made the intelligent decision to bring back team glue-guy and previous titlist, Dave Thomas. The team has looked a lot more together since, despite making perhaps their hardest worker in Grizzard the victim. Fortunately he fell into a nice situation for the remainder of the season in Adelaide, after Julius Hodge's was-he-wasn't-he-paid saga.
Brian Goorjian is looking good at the moment to pull off a bottom to top transformation of the Dragons, within the space of one season -- the type of improvement that is unprecedented in almost any sporting competition.
Game 2 will be played on Friday night at the State Netball and Hockey Centre, also known as The Cage. Will home cooking bring the Tigers back to life? That big drive across town might be the undoing of the Dragons this time around. However the Tigers will not have any shot if they shoot 37.5% from the field again (to the Dragons' 48.6%), or throw away their chances at the free-throw line (66.7% to 80.0%). Goorjian-led teams do not slip up when you present them with that opportunity.
The Dragons were powered by Goorj disciple Mark Worthington's 23 points and 10 rebounds and mid-season addition import Donta Smith's 19 and nine. Melbourne's Anstey put up 21 points and grabbed nine boards, but the rest of the Tigers' big guns were abhorrent from the field, with Ere shooting 4/12, Thomas 3/10 and Barlow 4/15. South can not rely on the Tigers shooting that poorly across the board on Friday. Or perhaps the Dragons discovered how to stop shooters after dealing with John Rillie's hot hand in the last round.
Thanks go to YouTube user tqsuited for the following amateur footage of highlights from Game 1.
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