Isaac
Years ago
Funny Sixers bury Pigs after first half blitz
The Adelaide 36ERS rampant home court record was extended tonight courtesy of the West Sydney Razorbacks. After a dominant first half, the Sixers held on for a 108-84 victory.
Willie Farley dropped 26 points on his one-time team-mates, but it was local favourite Darren Ng who drew the most applause, adding an alley-oop punctuation mark to a career-high 19 points. Brett Maher's 15 points and 10 assists led him past 7000 career points, and Jacob Holmes posted his best scoring game of recent weeks, managing 17 for the game.
Both teams started the game making their baskets, but superb team defense and general play saw the Sixers push to an early lead. Paul Rees had two assists in the first few minutes, the second of them leading to a Farley lay-up. Farley followed that with a three pointer and another two-point shot to move to 9 points and force the Razorbacks time out.
The pause had little effect though with Farley adding another basket before Ng entered the court and swished three points of his own for a 27-10 scoreline. By the end of the first quarter, the signs were ominous: 35-14 and Farley already in double figures with 11.
The second quarter continued on a similar route as Maher scored two points to pass 7000 career points and his team-mates appeared energised and fluid with their play. At 51-25, the Pigs called for another time-out, but it again had no effect -- Ng made the three directly after and the home side had blown out to hold a commanding 29 point lead.
With Holmes rebounding strongly, Ng added another 6 points of his own and the Sixers theme song (usually reserved for the final minute of a game) was being played demoralisingly early: 68-27, for a 41 point margin.
At half-time, the difference was 38 points with Adelaide leading 70-32. The difference, beyond the 60% to 34% field goal accuracy came on the boards as the home team had a 34-13 rebound advantage against what is normally a strong rebounding opponent.
The third quarter was a near reversal of that prior to it as the Razorbacks reclaimed some dignity in posting 29 points to Adelaide's 19, but the half-time margin was simply too wide to catch. Holmes buried a number of threes for the period, advancing to 17 points.
Frustration on behalf of the visiting side emerged in the final term as Scott McGregor had words for Holmes and made long baskets of his own, but the flow was stemmed with the insertion of Dusty Rychart who had a quick score in the key.
Coach Phil Smyth benched Farley on 26 points and the result was beyond doubt; the finishing minutes were played by the Pigs' bench, and Sixers' 11th and 12th men joined for some courttime of their own.
Final scoreline:
Sixers 108 (Farley 26, Ng 19, Holmes 17, Maher 15, Rychart 12, Cooper 10)
Razorbacks 84 (Horvath 16, Dwight 16, McGregor 14)
Rebounds: Rees 8, Holmes 7, Forman 7, Cooper 6, Rychart 6.
Assists: Maher 10.
Boxscore
