Hope Ben uses these games to try out his outside shooting.
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United offense already smothered.
Simmons is a fkg animal. Offensively and Defensively
LOL.
Ben had a wide open middy and instead threw it off the backboard to throw a dime to Markelle
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Unreal.
Fultz looks like he can def play.
Ben dominating.
Not seeing anything different in his game from last year though.
Hopefully Bolden gets some minutes.
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Ben has got pre-season legs. Missed two open dunks already.
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Melbourne not disgracing themselves. Goulding can damn well play and Mccarron looks like a good pick up for them.
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The first 5-10 minutes set the tone and playing even since then. Kings have a much better roster this year though.
Goulding has just hurt his knee.
Ah FFS. Embiid fell on him
Australia beat Spain 72-66 in the semis and have the USA in the final.
Cambage 33 points, 15 rebounds.
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Opals overcame their greatest test so far in the tournament, coming back from 8 pts down against the current 2nd best team in the world and a very vocal home crowd.
The Opals got out to a handy 15 pt lead on the back of some great defence early in the first.
Some missed shots allowed Spain to get a bit of a run on late in the first to get it back to 8 pts.
As expected Cambage was being double and triple teamed at times so there were scoring opportunities outside but not taken advantage of.
A lot of physicality put into Cambage during the 2nd which she worked through. A poor offensive foul call against her got the crowd into it and she taunted the crowd when taken off for a rest.
During her rest of 5 mins, Opals shooting continued to be poor missing many relatively easy shots.
Spain during this time got on another roll hitting a number of outside shots to level the scores.
Once Cambage came back on Spains shooting started going off, with the crowd booing every Australian possession. Spain 35 led Australia 34 at the half.
Opals started to drop a few outside shots midway thru the 3rd with Ebzery and Allen stepping up.
Cambage kept working her way inside the paint drawing plenty of fouls on the Spanish defence, nailing the majority of her free throws. The crowd continued to taunt her which she used to spur herself on.
Once again Spain got a roll late in the quarter not helped by both Whitcomb missing two and Talbot missing three open 3s, together with two soft offensive fouls called on Cambage and George.
Spain 58 led Aus 50 at 3/4.
Going into the last the obvious play for the Opals was to go thru Cambage as much as possible as our outside shooting at 14% was killing us.
Within the first 3 minutes Opals take the lead with 6 pts on the back of Cambage posting up and ezbery hitting a corner 3 . This was helped by Spain not scoring on their first 4 movements down the court.
Spains tall Endour fouled out with 6 mins left which allowed Cambage to stay at home more defensively and intimidate any midrange shots.
The refs decided to get into the game calling a foul on Cambage for taunting the crowd, this put her on 4 fouls which made for an anxious final 5 minutes.
For some reason the Opals got out their offensive sets midway thru the quarter, moving away from what got them back in front in the first place. Frustrating to watch Cambage up high playing guard when the money was on the deep post position. Something that will need to be reinforced prior to the final.
Luckily during this period Spain where not shooting particularly well themselves but they got 3pts up with 4 mins left.
Some huge defensive plays with 2 blocks by Cambage and then one by Ohea kept the scores prevented Spain eating into our slim 2 pt lead.
With 2 mins left George hit a HUGE open 3 from the corner which game a good break at 69-64
An unlucky Spanish defensive tap ended up in Cambage’s hands in the paint to score which put the game beyond doubt with 30 secs left.
The 72-66 win puts the Opals into the final against the US at 5am our time Mon morning.
Hopefully we don’t see a repeat of the 24% 3pt shooting.
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Wildcats getting done by Utah
88-38 midway thru the 3rd.
And that’s without Jingles who’s been ruled out with leg soreness.
Yeah, it’s messy
In the other game Broekhoff is going pretty well for the Mavs
I will be at the Clippers V Sydney game tomorrow!
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