Some of the boys taking a break from the action.
Last night at the Wuxi Indoor Sports Arena the NBL All Stars went down to Team China 89-73.
People back home can be proud of how this team played in their first of two games on tour.
After getting out of the blocks slow we clawed our way back into the game by half time. Keeping the Chinese team to 11 second quarter points helped us get some momentum happening going into halftime. When the buzzer sounded for half time the All Stars had a one point lead (37-36).
But as it always seems to happen in China the home team began to gain ascendancy in the game during the third term.
The Chinese team managed to knock down some threes during this quarter while our offense went through some lean times. It was former NBA player Wang Zhizhi that was the catalyst behind the revival of the Chinese offense.
During the fourth we could not manage a significant run to where we could really cut into their lead. They always maintained a seven to eight point buffer until they hit a few threes in the last minute to blow the score out to a 16 point deficit.
Notes from the game:
New Zealand Breakers Oscar Forman got out of the blocks fast for us with eight first quarter points. He finished with 12pts, 2rebs, 2assists
South Dragons Matt Burston played a typical Matt Burston game. He has a knack of finding the ball around the rim. He was our leading scorer with 14pts and added 4rebs to his stats.
Only other player to reach double figures for us was Greg Vanderjagt. The currently unemployed Vanderjagt had 11pts and 4rebs for the night.
Current NBA player Yi Jianlian was China's leading scorer with 22pts and 8rebs. His athletic ability along with his skill set really identifies him as the best talent on the court.
Yao Ming did not play due to injury.
Rhys Carter had 6pts, 4assists and 3 steals.
Peter Crawford had 2pts, 2assts and 2stls.
Darren Ng had 6pts.
Cam Tragardh had 6pts.
Matt Knight had 2pts and 5 boards.
Cam Tovey went for 7pts, 5rebs and 2assists.
Alex Loughton had 7pts and 6rebs.
Tomorrow we move out and head to Ningbo for the last game on Sunday.
With a feel for our opposition now, our performance on Sunday should be a lot more polished and could see a win coming our way.
Some of the boys during a timeout.
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