crellis
10-25-2004, 08:22 PM
Melbourne 105 West Sydney 97
A VINTAGE final quarter from veteran Andrew Gaze handed Melbourne a victory over West Sydney to help the Tigers avoid an unwanted NBL grand slam in Sydney tonight.
With the game tied at 80-80 with just over seven and a half minutes to go, Gaze took control scoring 13 of the Tigers' next 15 points in just over three minutes as they bolted to a 95-84 lead.
Gaze finished with a game-high 32 points, 15 of them in the last quarter.
He hit 10 of 14 field goals including four out of seven three-point attempts and the normally immaculate free-throw shooter even had the luxury of missing three shots from the charity stripe in the last term.
It was the Tigers' first away win in four starts and ended a horrible run of results in NSW.
Prior to tonight, Melbourne had lost each of its previous games in NSW, going down by eight to Wollongong, seven to Hunter and one to Sydney.
Gaze and his father Lindsay, the Tigers' coach were both inducted into the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame in Sydney last night.
The Tigers' other evergreen guard Lanard Copeland also stepped up in the final term.
After failing with all six field goal attempts in the first three quarters, Copeland scored eight of his 10 points in the final period.
Tigers centre Mark Bradtke finished with 15 points and enjoyed a good battle with the Razorbacks' new American big man Nick Horvath, who top-scored for West Sydney with 19 points.
Sam Mackinnon scored 18 and Simon Dwight scored 17 for West Sydney whose record dropped to 2-2 while Melbourne improved to 3-4.
Prior to Gaze's decisive blitz, neither team had led by more than seven points in a match of numerous lead changes.
West Sydney led by two at quarter-time, but the Tigers hit back to hold a one-point advantage at the long break.
The Razorbacks rallied to lead by six in the third quarter, but the Tigers outscored them 14-5 in the remainder of the term to take a three-point advantage into the last period.
Both Andrew and Lindsay Gaze were relieved that the Tigers were able to close out tonight's game after their two narrow losses to the Kings, who came from 16 and 27-points down to beat Melbourne. "The disappointment of a couple of very narrow losses when we were in winnable positions starts to play on your mind and that can be something that can snowball and it seemed like we were trying to find a way of causing more problems for ourselves through the first half tonight as well," Lindsay Gaze said.
"But I commended the fellows on a very good second-half and defensively we withstood the pressures of a pretty good team."
Andrew Gaze preferred to focus on what he described as "great contributions from a whole host of people" rather than his own match-winning effort.
"(Guard) Daryl Corletto (11 points) did a great job when he came on and David Stiff (12 points) probably played his best game for us, he's starting to find his feet," Andrew Gaze said.
"You look at Lanard Copeland's (shooting) numbers – two-from-11 (field goals), you go `gee, a bit shaky' but in that fourth quarter he made two very significant plays."
West Sydney coach Mark Watkins conceded his players panicked in the final quarter and lamented their lack of talk and some costly defensive glitches.
"I think we fell apart with our defensive rules, I spoke to the players about what we wanted to do defensively and we gave them way too many easy buckets," Watkins said.
He conceded the Razorbacks played the game at a slower tempo than he would have liked and rued their lack of fast break opportunities.
MELBOURNE 105 (A Gaze 32 M Bradtke 15 D Stiff 12) bt WEST SYDNEY 97 (N Horvath 19 S Mackinnon 18 S Dwight 17) at Sydney Olympic Park.
:spin
A VINTAGE final quarter from veteran Andrew Gaze handed Melbourne a victory over West Sydney to help the Tigers avoid an unwanted NBL grand slam in Sydney tonight.
With the game tied at 80-80 with just over seven and a half minutes to go, Gaze took control scoring 13 of the Tigers' next 15 points in just over three minutes as they bolted to a 95-84 lead.
Gaze finished with a game-high 32 points, 15 of them in the last quarter.
He hit 10 of 14 field goals including four out of seven three-point attempts and the normally immaculate free-throw shooter even had the luxury of missing three shots from the charity stripe in the last term.
It was the Tigers' first away win in four starts and ended a horrible run of results in NSW.
Prior to tonight, Melbourne had lost each of its previous games in NSW, going down by eight to Wollongong, seven to Hunter and one to Sydney.
Gaze and his father Lindsay, the Tigers' coach were both inducted into the Basketball Australia Hall of Fame in Sydney last night.
The Tigers' other evergreen guard Lanard Copeland also stepped up in the final term.
After failing with all six field goal attempts in the first three quarters, Copeland scored eight of his 10 points in the final period.
Tigers centre Mark Bradtke finished with 15 points and enjoyed a good battle with the Razorbacks' new American big man Nick Horvath, who top-scored for West Sydney with 19 points.
Sam Mackinnon scored 18 and Simon Dwight scored 17 for West Sydney whose record dropped to 2-2 while Melbourne improved to 3-4.
Prior to Gaze's decisive blitz, neither team had led by more than seven points in a match of numerous lead changes.
West Sydney led by two at quarter-time, but the Tigers hit back to hold a one-point advantage at the long break.
The Razorbacks rallied to lead by six in the third quarter, but the Tigers outscored them 14-5 in the remainder of the term to take a three-point advantage into the last period.
Both Andrew and Lindsay Gaze were relieved that the Tigers were able to close out tonight's game after their two narrow losses to the Kings, who came from 16 and 27-points down to beat Melbourne. "The disappointment of a couple of very narrow losses when we were in winnable positions starts to play on your mind and that can be something that can snowball and it seemed like we were trying to find a way of causing more problems for ourselves through the first half tonight as well," Lindsay Gaze said.
"But I commended the fellows on a very good second-half and defensively we withstood the pressures of a pretty good team."
Andrew Gaze preferred to focus on what he described as "great contributions from a whole host of people" rather than his own match-winning effort.
"(Guard) Daryl Corletto (11 points) did a great job when he came on and David Stiff (12 points) probably played his best game for us, he's starting to find his feet," Andrew Gaze said.
"You look at Lanard Copeland's (shooting) numbers – two-from-11 (field goals), you go `gee, a bit shaky' but in that fourth quarter he made two very significant plays."
West Sydney coach Mark Watkins conceded his players panicked in the final quarter and lamented their lack of talk and some costly defensive glitches.
"I think we fell apart with our defensive rules, I spoke to the players about what we wanted to do defensively and we gave them way too many easy buckets," Watkins said.
He conceded the Razorbacks played the game at a slower tempo than he would have liked and rued their lack of fast break opportunities.
MELBOURNE 105 (A Gaze 32 M Bradtke 15 D Stiff 12) bt WEST SYDNEY 97 (N Horvath 19 S Mackinnon 18 S Dwight 17) at Sydney Olympic Park.
:spin