The Otago Nuggets continued their successful comeback in Auckland last night. They beat the Nelson Giants 107-82 to claim their second win in as many days to open the NBL showdown.
It was a Giants team without key trio Mika Vukona, Mike Karena and Dane Brooks, but it was a classy display from the Nuggets nevertheless.
They led by 10 at the last break, before running away with a 31-16 final quarter.
Jordan Ngatai showed his class and was pivotal in creating a buffer. He drained four three-pointers in the second quarter to help the Nuggets open a 39-24 lead midway through that period.
He finished with 23 points to lead the Nuggets.
Jordan Hunt was similarly productive, finishing with 19 points on seven of 11 shooting.
Star point guard Jarrod Kenny did not take a shot, although he controlled the game well.
That was irrelevant, though, as the Nuggets bench contributed 46 points, notably through Dunedin duo Josh Aitcheson and Richie Rodger who had 13 and 11 respectively.
The way the team shared the ball in that way pleased Nuggets coach Brent Matehaere. But it was the improved defensive performance that was most pleasing.
He said the offence would come with the amount of talent on the team.
Defence would be a difference-maker, especially with the number of scores topping 100 already in the league.
"We talked about it as a group in terms of our defence yesterday. We didn’t think we were close to where we wanted to be," he said.
"We came up with a plan to prevent some of the things they were trying to do.
"We did that reasonably well, but when we missed that they hurt us.
"They’ve got their number one, two and three picks sitting on the sideline. When they get them back they’ll be tough."
It was that defence that got the Nuggets off to a great start. They forced turnovers and pushed the ball to score in transition.
When Richie Rodger hit the first of his three from the deep, they took a 15-4 lead.
But the Giants came back as Nic Trathen (21 points) and Tom Ingham (17 points) began to hit long shots.
That helped them keep it to 26-17 at the first break.
At that point Ngatai took over. He scored 11 quick points to make it 37-19, before the Giants called a timeout shortly after.
From there the Giants began to find open shooters and to pull it back to 44-36.
As the stops came back, so did the Nuggets’ lead. That enabled them to push the ball up the floor once more and restore the 18-point lead.
But again the Giants shooters pulled them back to 71-66 late in the third quarter.
That prompted a Nuggets timeout and from there it was never a contest. They opened a gap and then turned to a younger line-up who took charge.
Alongside a tighter defence, they executed well on offence, Josh Aitcheson notably scoring eight of his points during that quarter.
They will plays the Taranaki Mountainairs on Wednesday.
