2009 Australian NBL playoff finals

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AUS - Worthington takes game one on his shoulders



MELBOURNE (NBL) - Since December, when Donta Smith arrived in Australia, he and Mark Worthington have been arguably the best forward combination in the NBL - Oceania's premier competition.



In game one of the NBL Grand Final series, that duo took charge to help the South Dragons secure a 93-81 victory over the reigning champion Melbourne Tigers at Hisense Arena. Scores were tied at 21-21 after one quarter and 45-45 at half time.



With the Dragons trailing 63-60 at three quarter time, captain Worthington stepped up, scoring 12 points in the final term and pulling in a number of key rebounds as South outscored Melbourne 33-18 for the quarter.



The FIBA World Championship and Olympic veteran finished with 23 points and 10 rebounds, and received great support from Smith (19 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists), whose athleticism allows the Dragons to match the Tigers outstanding frontcourt.



For Melbourne, Canadian national team captain Dave Thomas provided great spark as the Tigers took an 8-point lead early in the second quarter. Thomas would finish with just 7 points, but collected 12 rebounds, including 6 offensive.



He received great support on the boards from Australian internationals Chris Anstey (21 points, 9 rebounds) and Dave Barlow (13 points, 8 rebounds). Barlow, though, shot just 4/15 from the field and was outplayed by his rival and Boomers teammate Worthington.



Nigerian FIBA World Championship star Ebi Ere was dominant defensively with 4 blocked shots, but his 15 points came on just 4/12 shooting, thanks largely to the defensive efforts of young gun Joe Ingles.



Ingles got tongues wagging with his cameo performances at the Beijing Olympics, and after an inconsistent semi final series, produced in grand final game one with 19 points on 6/10 shooting.



Game two is on Friday night at The Cage, Melbourne's intimidating home court, but the Tigers will need to play more adventurous basketball, and score more than 81 points, if they are going to level the best of five series.



Tigers coach Al Westover said: "We just didn't play well enough to win a grand final.



"The whole last quarter wasn't very good. It is hard to win a game when you only shoot 34 percent from the field and hopefully we got the bad one out of our system and can hit back."



Not surprisingly, Dragons and Australian Boomers coach Brian Goorjian was much happier. "It was a great effort over the 48 minutes," he said. "We talked about withstanding their pressure and applying it and I thought we did a great job of hanging in there and taking their best shot."



"As the game went on we got settled into our stuff and in the final quarter we scored 33 points and ran our offence and our system real well. We also got the ball to the people we wanted to and they made plays."

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