Tara Murray
Wyndham couldn’t have asked for much more from the opening match of the best-of-three Big V men’s state championship grand final series.
Playing game one against the Sunbury Jets at home in front of their big home crowd, Wyndham turned on a show for the home crowd on Sunday.
In one of the performances of the season, Wyndham stunned everyone winning, 106-68.
Wyndham coach Lucas Allen said he wasn’t expecting that type of result.
“I was expecting something a lot closer,” he said. “It’s one of those games I expected momentum swings and a number of runs to come from Sunbury.
“We did an outstanding job of keeping the foot on the pedal.”
Allen said it was one of the first times they had executed the scout perfectly. On the defensive end they restricted the Jets shooters and made them force shots.
“The understanding and executing our scout for the team defence was really good,” he said. “Everyone really bought into that. Ish and Max had 16 points between them, that is unheard of.
“They got some shots that we were happy for them to have.”
Maurice Howard top scored with 23 points, while having four rebounds six assists and three steals.
Aaron Dolny and Manel Ayol also had 20-point games,
One of the more pleasing things for Allen was the opportunity for everyone to get some court time, with both teams clearing the benches in the final quarter.
“It’s been a tough four, five or six weeks for the younger ones with the opportunity to play decreasing as we made the push to finals,” he said.
“To get the opportunity, it wasn’t large minutes, three to five minutes. “Hopefully it’s not the last time this season.”
Allen, who for the most part hadn’t been happy with most of their performances throughout the season, said now it was just about winning, not the long term focus is had previously been.
Game two on Saturday night and if needed, game three on Sunday will be played at Sunbury.
Allen is expecting a different Sunbury team to come out on Saturday night after the disappointment of game one.
“Sunbury will be wound up about that performance,” he said. “We know they will look to come out firing and we will have to try and back it up with that same intent on both ends of the floor.”
While knowing Sunbury will come out firing, Allen said the focus remained on them.
‘“Our practice has not varied as we prepared for finals,” he said.
“We’ve been focusing on our defence and offence and how we execute that. Our focus stays the same and it doesn’t change at all.”
It’s been a big week for Allen, having been appointed assistant coach of NBL side the South East Melbourne Phoenix.
He had been part time technical assistant during the club’s first season.
