Match Report - Scrimmage v Phillipines 1st July 2013
1st of July saw the scrimmage between the 7th ranked Phillipines and the 42 ranked Australians played at the Wombat Kings home court, "The Lair"
On paper the Phillipines looked like a strong LI team with 4 Centres having more expensive salaries than Australias most expensive player in Wayne, but Australia having 3 gaurds with more expensive Salaries than the Philipines best.
Australia had a definite advantage in gameshape though with the Phillipines having 8 of their 14 players with only respectable gameshape as compared to Australias 3 of 13 and also making things harder for the Phillipines was Australias HCA and the fact their 54K centre in Noche, was out injured.
Surprises in the starting lineups was Australia starting with Evonnes son at PG and Cantara the Phillipines 30K SF starting at SG.
Game shape problems and perhaps a desire to keep something up their sleeves also saw the Phillipines starting their 11th and 13th most expensive players.
Australia quickly hit the lead with Barth sinking some free throws and it wasnt until 5 minutes into the first quarter that the Phillipines hit the lead.
Somogod the Phillipines PG was troubling the Australians hitting 3 from 3 in the first stanza and their PF in Porter had a definite advantage on the boards which saw the Phillipines lead Australia by 23 to 18 at quarter time.
2 mins into the 2nd qaurter and Barth who has his own gameshape issues gets off his 4th assist to start a 8 to 2 run Australias way.
Having dropped behind 25 to 26, the Phillipines then went on their own run getting 10 of the next 12 points to take a lead 35 to 28.
A couple of interesting moves by the Aussies during the 2nd quarter saw Wang briefly at PF and the Chico Roll, Wang, Evoones Son, Williams and Sacks (The hessian bag) all spend time in the SF position during the 2nd quarter.
By half time Australia had closed the gap but were still behind 41 to 39, mainly due to the Phillipines PF Porter getting 8 rebounds and 11 points ( Phillipines led the rebounding 26 to 20 at half time)
3rd quarter is the premiership quarter and the Chicoroll starts the quarter by hitting a jumpshot from the top of the key.
Somogod was still hurting the Australians with 6 from 6 shooting.
Key moments in this quarter was Sercombe fouling Somogod on the way to the basket causing him to miss the shot and subsequently he also missed the free throws (stopping Somogods "I cant miss mentality") and Barth hitting Australias first 3 for the game.
Porter seemed to be tiring against the double tag of Ted and the Chicoroll and was becoming less dominant.
Australia led the Phillipines 70 to 62 at 3 quarter time.
4th quarter saw the game open up a little with Wang dropping a couple of 3s.
Williams who was game leading scorer early and Porter, did not add to their points tallies in the last, but Barth who started strong early, kept on scoring and finished with 17 points which was equal top scorer in the game with Cantara.
Luckily though Barth hit 6 from 14 as oppossed to Cantaras 8 from 28.
The Truth finally got a run in the last minute in the SG position as Australia run out winners 101 to 89.
An analysis of the stats shows that Australia hit 40 from 91 field goals versus the Phillipines 42 from 90, but Australia shot 15 from 15 free throws to the Phillipines 3 from 8.
Porter obviously tired and Astralia had 22 rebounds in the last half to the Phillipines 18 which meant that over the game we only just lost the boards 44 to 42.
Any win is a good win and the Phillipines is a team Australia has to beat later in the tournament in order for us to make the worlds next season, but I dont think too much can be read into this game.
Last edited by Sid Vicious at 7/1/2013 8:23:00 AM