Once again a great performance from Lithuanian point guard Evaldas Zabas was not enough to lift the Thunder above a shaky Guildford Heat. Zabas contributed 27 points and 5 rebounds including an impressive 9/12 from the free throw line, but the only other Thunder player to reach double-figures was debutant John Nottley who added 17 points and 15 rebounds indicating his quality for the season ahead.
It's notable that the Thunder played without key guards James Brame and Adam Williams, and also foul trouble for 6'9'' big-man Shaun Durant meant Worthing were a little shorted handed in the second half. Forward Mansour Mbye did a lot of the little things, adding 5 rebounds, 4 steals and 3 assists, but his poor shooting, especially from the charity stripe prevented him from being a key factor.
Guildford are very deep, something that can be a bit of a hinderance at times on a BBL team, and this shows up a little in the statistics. As the saying goes: "too many cooks spoil the broth", and if we translate this into basketball we get "too many players means that the players don't get to play enough time together to reach a good level of team chemistry on the floor".
Statistically, at least, it was a good game for Mike Martin, who scored 21 points, adding 7 assists and 4 rebounds. Julius Joseph put up 20, and Americans Martelle McLemore and David Schneider added 12 and 10 respectively. A dissapointing performance from veteran Dean Williams who, given 14 minutes, managed nothing but 1 missed field goal attempt, and 1 turn-over. Big-men James Porter and Tomas Janusauskas were a bit of a non-factor, really, with Nottley being the pick of the 6'10''+ players.
Zabas appears to be playing the role of a free-scorer rather than a natural point guard, and this shows up with his single assist in nearly 39 minutes of running the team. I won't be able to make a fair assessment of the Thunder until I see them next week, but it seems to me that if Durant and Nottley can contribute and play together, and have a full compliment of guards available they could really be a handful for the Raiders team.
No comments:
Post a Comment