MANCHESTER GIANTS 82 -79 DURHAM WILDCATS
After 7 games Winless games and close games ending in heartbreak for the Gorton outfit...FINALLY THEY broke the streak, in the Battle at the bottom at W.R.S.C!! The Giants welcomed back Calum Jones & David Aliu from injury. And
Though to be honest, after a bright start by the Giants going 5-0 up Durham started to show off their Attacking threat. And Manchester wasn`t getting close enough to them and the Giants were made to pay for poor defending as the Wildcats stormed passed the home side with 3 pointers and good team play that Manchester was lacking in abundance especially on defense.
Giants tried to get back into the game and with silly errors made they were practially gifting the points to the Visitors. And the Giants fans who were quieter than normal just sat back and had to endure some great plays by the Durham players. So as the Quarter ticked down Manchester Were quickly losing a grip on the game and Durham was capitalising on the poor D and errors Giants were making.
1st Quarter: GIANTS 15-22 WILDCATS
2nd Quarter more of the same unfortunately for the hometown fans, as Durham were moving up a gear as their lead ballooned into double figures and were 15pts ahead at one point.
Callum Jones made a fantastic basket throwing it up against the backboard as get the 2pts as he was running out of room. Durham though thwarted the mini Giants revival as they managed to knock down 3`s it seemed on every possession especially by Bucci, Page and Guinane netting and building the lead up again.
Giants did manage to cut slowly into the deficit and claw their way back into the quarter, but Giants were commiting far too many "Traveling" and lost 4pts in doing so. Giants looked to their players to score the big points and Defend as the defensive as has been the main cause of concern for the G-Men.
And though David "TIN-TIN" Watts was connecting with 3 pts from beyond the 3 point line. Giants themselves were conceding 3 point plays too and was making life difficult on themselves. Giants had pulled it back to a couple of points, when more errors with clumsy play and switching off , was costing them.When basics like passing from under their own basket to restart was made out to be difficult, as Aliu whos returns to the side was Guilty on a few occasions of wrong decision making.
HALFTIME SCORE: GIANTS 38-43 WILDCATS!
3RD Quarter this new team came out for the 2nd half, a more aggressive, determined and defensively Switched on Basketball team side turned up. Wildcats looked like they were going to carry on where they left off. But Manchester started a comeback of their own, as they tied the game at 47-47, then Defense showed up with Jones, Watts and Eaves battling to win the ball and steal from the Wildcats, and throwing down dunks and alley hoops.
Durham looked dumbfounded at how could this team was playing awful look like a very well drilled team in the space of a quarter. And the Giants went from trailing 38 - 47 to 54 - 47 in the lead it was an incredible turn around! And arguably the best and most inventive play was Devan Bailey as he went to shoot, he drawn the Durham player to jump and bounced it softly nipped past him and shot the ball to net 2pts. And him and Watts shot 3 successive 3pointers between them in a row!
The defense by the GIANTS was fantastic and they also cut out the daft plays and the shot making was far better and not just resorting to shooting long range or passing for pass sake. And the crowd was into the game more as Watts waved the crowd to get behind them more and more during each Time out taken.
End of 3rd Quarter: GIANTS 70 - 59 WILDCATS
Aliu was struggling for me, as he didn`t seem his normal self as he gave a few balls away to them and put us under more pressure especially as the 13pts lead we had evaporated as Durham came back at the Giants cutting it down to 8pts and then 1pts and then a 3 Pointer gave them a 2pt lead.
Giants had a foul and started it from the end court of the Wildcats, to which Eaves superbly picked out David Aliu standing under the basket and drawn the foul and a basket that counted with great strength to hold off the Durham player and was a great effort, so he went to the free throw line to shoot 1 and made it a 80 -79 Ball game. The fans were already up for it, but even more so now! Then after Wildcats erratic passing nearly found an open guy and his shot sailed just under the basket and failed to re take the lead.
The Giants coach Jeff Jones took a time out and the resulting play was was great vision and idea by the team. As Durham thought they had Man marked every giants player, but Eaves saw Gill darting up the empty half court and tossed it to him. To which he hoped to draw a foul but didn`t, leading to 82 - 79. And which point Durham Wildcats coach then took a Timeout to design a play to get the 3points and take us to OVERTIME.
20.9 seconds left in the game, Durham gets the ball Giants defense tries to take away any 3point efforts available. And a pass is stop at 16.4 as Giants foul, Play starts up again but Giants cause a foul with 4.6 left of the game to go. COULD THE GIANTS HANG ON, fingers were crossed, fans were cheering the team on hoping they could hang on for the 4.6 second to register the win. Pass came in and the Durham player tried to throw it over his head while jumping(??) And Aliu recieved the ball from Watts and with 1.3 seconds to go he just launched it up in the air as the ball so it couldn`t be stolen and shot.
Bringing the game to a exciting climax and DREAM ENDING for the Giants to snap the 7 game Winless streak and Moving them above Durham in the table.
Top scorer: Devan Bailey 20 pts, Watts & Aliu 16pts and Eaves 11pts
FINAL SCORE : MANCHESTER GIANTS 82 - 79 DURHAM WILDCATS
Bottom:
pld W L pts
8. Cheshire Phoenix 13 5 8 10
9. Sheffield Sharks 12 4 8 8
10. Manchester Giants 12 4 10 8
11. Durham Wildcats 12 3 10 6
12. Mersey Tigers 13 0 13 0
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