THE Willetton Tigers Men continue to charge into championship calculations backing up their big Saturday night win over Perth Redbacks with a thumping of the Goldfields Giants by 29 points at Willetton Basketball Stadium on Sunday.

The Tigers sent a message to the rest of the league last Friday night when they beat the Joondalup Wolves on the back of a massive second half.

They then came into Week 15 on a mission unhappy with a suspension to big man Josh Johnson for Saturday's clash with the Perth Redbacks and the Tigers delivered 74 points to 31 in the second half to run out 35-point winners over a team on a five-game winning streak.

That was always going to leave the Giants up against it on Sunday. Goldfields had copped the brunt of an angry Wolfpack on Saturday night and then on Sunday faced the full force of the Tigers in the first half with Willetton setting up the eventual 104-75 victory.

The Giants actually started well, but their frustrations boiled over late in the first quarter. Jacob Holmen copped a technical foul after what he felt was a missed call but still the Tigers led by just one at quarter-time.

Willetton took over in the second quarter and piling on 39 points with Jay Bowie unstoppable in the open floor, Charles Funches doing well down low and Lachlan Evans providing a surprise spark off the bench with three triples.

That left the game over as a contest at the half with Willetton leading 60-30. To the Goldfields' credit they fought the game out well winning the second half to cut the final margin to 29.

The Tigers shot well from the field going 42-of-88 at 47 per cent while dominating the rebound count with 55 to 41. The Giants shot 31-of-90 from the floor at 34 per cent and made just one of 18 attempts from beyond the arc.

It was the evenness of the performance across the board from the Tigers that was most impressive with Funches top-scoring off the bench with the import big finishing with 17 points, nine rebounds and three assists including two big slams.

Evans finished with 15 points, four rebounds, two steal and two blocked shots.

Bowie added 15 points and four rebounds but didn’t score in the second half while Kyle Armour contributed 14 points, Nic Cody 13, Damien Scott 10 and Johnson five points, 15 rebounds and seven assists after his suspension on Saturday night.

Scott and his Tigers teammates came into the weekend determined to send a message in the two games against the Redbacks and Giants after a bit of a tense week with Johnson's suspension.

To dominate the second half like they did against the Redbacks and then beat the Giants was just what they were after.

"We spoke all week about how we needed to stick together. A lot of things don’t go anyone's way all the time and everyone's getting a bit annoyed at this time of the year, but we focused on sticking together and not bite at everything that's out of our control," Scott said.

"We knew they were two big games for us and we came into the weekend pretty focused. We knew that JJ was out on Saturday night so we all had to step up a little bit more and we just had to follow what Steve said and get the job done. The first half on Saturday wasn’t that great but in the second half we put it together and took off with the game.

"We knew we had some advantages in the match up against the Giants so again we knew if we stuck to our structures we'd go alright. It doesn’t help them when Jay goes off, Kyle goes off, Chuck plays well and we all just click like we did in the second quarter to blow out with a 39 to 10 run. That makes it tough to come back from that for them which is good for us."

Kenny Manigault top-scored for the Giants with 16 points, eight rebounds, four steals, two assists and two blocks with Holmen adding 14 points, 17 rebounds and three assists, and Daniel Goodluck 10 points.

Jerome Reid finished with 10 points, three steals and two blocked shots and that was despite suffering a dislocated shoulder during the third quarter, but just minutes later he returned showing no ill-effects.

Giants coach Michael Haney was disappointed to return home having seen his team's winless streak stretch to 10 games but it was never going to be an easy weekend against teams in the Wolves and Tigers who both wanted to make a statement against them.

"The Wolves had lost a couple of games recently so we caught a team last night ready to bounce back and they just got on fire, and made shots. They are a very good team and then today we came to a team full of confidence like the Tigers," Haney said.

"We got a little bit tired and you could hear coach Black telling them run, run, run. They wanted to run at us and when we weren’t making shots, they got the ball off the glass and were going at us.

"Give them credit, they knew what they were doing and knew how to exploit our weaknesses. It's just hard when you can't make a shot and it's a snowball effect when they are running at us.

"We had that bad second quarter when they jumped us but we're a bit of a young team so we have to take it in our stride and stay positive.

"We did start to point a few fingers here and there at half-time with a bit of bickering, but that's all done now. With a team like us we have to be positive and learn from these two games, and learn from them. As long as we learn from it then I'm fine."

SUNDAY MEN'S SBL MATCHES
Goodlife Homes Willetton Tigers 104 defeated Silver Lake Resources Goldfields Giants 75

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by June Halliday