NBL 2013/14: GF Game 3- Perth crowned Champions
The Perth Wildcats have claimed the 2013/14 NBL championship off the back of a stellar second quarter in Game 3 Sunday ‘morning’.
Perth controlled the game from the second term and then throughout, winning every 50/50 ball and receiving a few lucky home crowd calls from the referees. With James Ennis sitting on the bench with four fouls early in the third term, it was the core ‘Cats group that stood tall when they needed to.
Jermaine Beal was outstanding and named a deserving Finals MVP, who scored 15 points and dished four assists in the final game, while Greg Hire wouldn’t have been far behind him with another consistent performance with 9 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists.
A significant difference in the shooting percentages told the story, as Perth 45% shut down everything the Sixers 34% wanted to do down the other end.
Adelaide couldn’t manage anything from the get go, as their stars struggled to find any momentum from their game 2 victory; Adam Gibson (8 points), Gary Ervin (4 points, 1/8FG), Rhys Carter (2 points, 1/5FG) and Daniel Johnson (9 points, 4 rebounds) were all underperformers when the championship was on the line.
Anthony Petrie was the only bright spark for the visitors with 20 points and four rebounds.
With the Sixers shooting just 3 of 17 from beyond the arc, everything they tried to do in the second half to peg the margin back failed, which allowed the Wildcats to blow their lead out to 34 points.
From there, the home side, along with their fans were celebrating the championship they were about to receive. Deserving champions, the Wildcats had been the best team all year led by a great core of players and not just any individual performances.
Congratulations go out to the Perth Wildcats organisation from all of our NBL crew here at The Pick and Roll. We leave it here for our coverage of the 2013/14 NBL season, be sure to check out our State League coverage during the off-season before we bounce back and hit up the 2014/15 NBL season bigger and better than ever!
Perth Wildcats 93 (Redhage 16, Beal 15, Martin 14) Adelaide 36ers 59 (Petrie 20, Johnson 9, Gibson 8) Attendance: 13,498 @ Perth Arena