First blood to Charlton
Charlton was coaching against the Giants, who he led to the 2007 and 2008 SBL championships, for the first time since taking over Cockburn’s head coaching role late last year.
Another former Giant, American import Bryce Burch, also came back to haunt his old club with a game-high 27 points for Cockburn.
It was the Giants’ heaviest defeat of the season so far as they slumped to seventh position on the SBL ladder with a 3-3 win-loss record, including two wins from four games on the road.
For Goldfields, US imports John Vaudreuil (22 points and nine rebounds) and Michael Haney (17 points, eight rebounds and four assists) did most of the work on the offensive end.
However, Vaudreuil shot only 38 per cent from the field as the Giants played catch-up for virtually the entire game.
They trailed 26-20 at quarter-time, 47-46 at the half and 77-65 at the final change.
In the absence of Giants captain Ryan Hulme, who misses six games due to his honeymoon in Mauritius, starting point guard Jimmy Bowler stepped up to play 35 minutes for a season-high 16 points.
Bowler also played 38 minutes in Good Friday’s 84-76 win over the Rockingham Flames, which represented his 200th SBL game.
Haney racked up 19 points and 14 rebounds for the Giants – his second double-double in six games this season.
The Giants had four players in double figures in the Rockingham win, including Matt Leske who has averaged a career-high 10.5 points per game through the opening six matches.
Goldfields led 23-20 at quarter-time but went into the main break 43-42 down.
But Rockingham was held to just 33 points for the second half as the Giants went on to win after holding a slender 61-60 lead at three-quarter-time.
Vaudreuil posted 14 points and 14 rebounds for his third double-double in six games.
The Giants’ focus now turns to the bottom-ranked Bunbury Slammers at Kalgoorlie’s Neils Hansen Basketball Stadium next Saturday.
The Slammers were thrashed 92-64 on Friday by the Stirling Senators – their fifth loss in as many games.
Article by Jarrod Lucas (Kalgoorlie Miner)
Photo by Travis Anderson - Andmedia/Sports Vision
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