WILLETTON Tigers men continue to charge into championship calculations backing up their big Saturday night win over Perth Redbacks with a thumping of Goldfields Giants by 29 points at Willetton Basketball Stadium on Sunday.
The Tigers sent a message to the rest of the league last Friday night when they beat Joondalup Wolves on the back of a massive second half.
They then came into Week 15 on a mission unhappy with a suspension to big man Josh Johnson for Saturday’s clash with Perth, and the Tigers delivered 74 points to 31 in the second half to run out 35-point winners over a team on a five-game winning streak.
Get in front of tomorrow's news for FREE
Journalism for the curious Australian across politics, business, culture and opinion.
READ NOWThat was always going to leave the Giants up against it on Sunday. Goldfields had copped the brunt of an angry Wolfpack on Saturday night and then on Sunday faced the full force of the Tigers in the first half with Willetton setting up the eventual 104-75 victory.
The Giants actually started well, but their frustrations boiled over late in the first quarter. Jacob Holmen copped a technical foul after what he felt was a missed call but still the Tigers led by just one at quarter-time.
Willetton took over in the second quarter and piled on 39 points with Jay Bowie unstoppable in the open floor, Charles Funches doing well down low and Lachlan Evans providing a surprise spark off the bench with three triples.
That left the game over as a contest at the half with Willetton leading 60-30.
To the Goldfields’ credit it fought the game out well winning the second half to cut the final margin to 29.
The Tigers shot well from the field going 42-of-88 at 47 per cent while dominating the rebound count with 55 to 41.
The Giants shot 31-of-90 from the floor at 34 per cent and made just one of 18 attempts from beyond the arc.
To dominate the second half like they did against the Redbacks and then beat the Giants was just what they were after said the Tigers’ Damian Scott.
“We spoke all week about how we needed to stick together. A lot of things don’t go anyone’s way all the time and everyone’s getting a bit annoyed at this time of the year, but we focused on sticking together and not bite at everything that’s out of our control,” Scott said.
“We knew they were two big games for us and we came into the weekend pretty focused. We knew that (Josh Johnson) was out on Saturday night so we all had to step up a little bit more and we just had to follow what Steve said and get the job done. The first half on Saturday wasn’t that great but in the second half we put it together and took off with the game.
“We knew we had some advantages in the match up against the Giants so again we knew if we stuck to our structures we’d go alright. It does not help them when Jay goes off, Kyle goes off, Chuck plays well and we all just click like we did in the second quarter to blow out with a 39 to 10 run. That makes it tough to come back from that for them which is good for us.”
In the women’s clashes, the Tigers remained in touch with top position and hurt the Redbacks’ hopes of breaking into the top four with a 15-point victory at Belmont Oasis Leisure Centre.
The Tigers dominated the first half to lead 49-31 at half time and then held on to win by 15 despite scoring just 21 points in the second half, and eight in the fourth quarter.
Willetton ended up shooting 26-of-62 from the field at 41 per cent with Perth going just 22-of-78 at 28 per cent.
The Tigers also had 12 more rebounds and were not made to pay for 21 turnovers. Willetton dominated inside with 38 points to 24.
Kate Malpass was the star for the Tigers with 28 points, nine rebounds, three assists and two steals on the back of shooting 9-of-13 from the field and 9-of-12 from the foul line.