By Connor Rice

Southern Tigers 101 | Norwood Flames 69

Another round and another massive performance from the Southern Tigers in Morphett Vale.

Steam rolling the competition with their elite personnel, the Tigers would surely be counting down the weeks until finals begin. It has been a while since the Premier League has had such a deep competition of great teams and such a massive discrepancy between the 1 and 2 seeds.

The first quarter saw the Flames get an early lead, however the Tigers gained an 8 point advantage heading into the 2^nd quarter and following this is when the game really broke out. Star duo, Mitch Creek and Alex Starling ran rampant on the Flames’ front court, crashing the class, pushing the ball in transition and getting some easy scores at the rim.

There is very little love lost between the Flames and the Tigers and it seemed for Mitch Creek this was a statement game against the physical Flames. Finishing with 38 points and 13 rebounds, Creek really stamped his name on the game. This was none more apparent in his deep pull up 3 in the 3^rd quarter, which basically sealed the game and proved he could be the league’s MVP.

As for the rest of the deep Tigers unit, great games again from Starling (11 points, 11 rebounds), Todd Davies (10 points) and Sam Johns (11 points, 6 rebounds) really proved too much for the Flames, who got dominated in every major statistical category. Matthew Long who finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds and Ben Howell with 12 points were rare bright spots for the Flames but other than that, their production and defense was just overmatched against a red hot Tigers unit.

With a +37 point winning margin, the game will prove as both a percentage and confidence booster over the Flames as it is likely the two squads will match up once again in the finals.

Round 21: Saturday, 13 August at 8.15pm
Southern Tigers v North Adelaide @ Hillcrest
Norwood Flames v South Adelaide @ Mars