Dominant Kings too much for JackJumpers

The Tasmania JackJumpers saw their two game winning streak wiped away by the Sydney Kings on Friday night. The Kings were dominant at both ends of the floor to run out 97-77 winners at Qudos Bank Arena.

The Kings came into the game having lost two of their past three game, and wanted to make sure there was no repeat of their 4th quarter meltdown when they last played Tasmania. The Kings out-scored, out-rebounded and out-hustled, showing why they are defending champs, none of which was lost on JackJumpers coach Scott Roth.

“The whole mindset of those guys [the Kings] was fantastic, I think they just got after us for and old fashioned butt whooping,” he said post game.

The two sides battled in a high scoring first quarter. The Kings were shooting at a great clip, but were careless with the ball, resulting in six turnovers, allowing Tasmania to stay in the game with extra possessions. The JackJumpers had managed to keep Xavier Cooks relatively quiet, with Jack McVeigh winning the early battle as the visitors held a 26-25 lead.

However, the Sydney Kings made their move in the second quarter on the back of Xavier Cooks. He consistently was able to slice through the JackJumpers defense for easy baskets in the paint, or pass-off to team mates for easy points. Cooks had 10 points for the quarter as the Kings took command of the game at 54-44 at half time, having shot 69% from the field in the first half.

Any JackJumpers fightback was extinguished as the Kings opened the second half on a 7-0 run to push the lead out to 17. The matchups just were not working for Scott Roth, who turned to his bench for a spark. Isaac White, Sean MacDonald, Jarred Weeks and Jarred Bairstow all performed admirably and stopped the onslaught of points, but were unable to make any inroads into the lead.

The remainder of the half the Kings focused on their defense and not letting Tasmania back into the game as they did in Round 10. The benches got valuable time late in the game and it did not effect the Kings shooting, who ended up winning the game 97-77 on 69% shooting from the field.

Post game Scott Roth praised the effort of the Sydney Kings.

“It was more of an effort thing and they just got after us. Once the ball started going in we started breaking some assignments which opened up a lot of things for them. They played very well and we just couldn’t handle them, we couldn’t guard them.”

This loss takes Tasmania to 10-9 on the season. Although winning on the road in Sydney is no mean feat, their inconsistent effort across the season has frustrated Forward Jarred Bairstow.

“We’ve just got to be more solid in what we are doing and consistent across the board,” Bairstow said.

When we are good and we’ve been on top of people, we’re physical and run the lanes, pushing them out of their stuff. we’re really tough. But we ‘ve failed to be consistent all year and you’ve got to be able to do that every single possession.”

Outhussled

The JackJumpers were dominated inside around the rim by the Kings, losing the rebound count 38-20 and outscored 56-20. Although this wasn’t entirely a surprise as Sydney boasts a large lineup, the lopsided numbers would be of concern. The Kings did a great job of keeping Tassie’s bigs of McVeigh, Kelly and Magnay off the glass, the trio combining for just four rebounds.

Further illustration of Sydney’s efforts on the boards, they won the rebound count 40-39 in their round 10 matchup.

Minutes

Roth was very quick to go to his bench during the game, with many of them racking up some big minutes in the the loss. This is expected in blowout losses, but McVeigh only playing 12.47 minutes, and Magette 18.55 is a little surprising, knowing what big roles they play on the team’s

Up Next

Luckily for the JackJumpers they do not have long to dwell on the loss, as they host the 3rd placed SE Melbourne Phoenix on New Years day at 4pm.