Adams down, Thunder up 2-1 Pair head home to join the Tall Blacks
Top Kiwi basketballers Tom Abercrombie and Isaac Fotu have had their final hit-out for their European clubs before linking up with the Tall Blacks for their last crack at Olympic qualification.
Young forward Fotu and his Zaragoza team finished 12th of 18 after a 73-72 win in Bilbao in the 34th and final game of the regular season in the Spanish league.
For Fotu, it was a return to the place where he burst on to the international scene, averaging 9.5 points and 4.5 rebounds per game for the New Zealand men’s side during the 2014 World Cup.
The 22-year-old will be back with Zaragoza for the third year of his three-year contract next season, but he now heads back to Auckland ahead of the Tall Blacks squad’s assembly on June 7.
Joining him will be Abercrombie; his club Pinar Karsiyaka were eliminated in the Turkish league playoffs.
Karsiyaka won the opening game of their quarterfinal series against Galatasaray in Istanbul, 74-67, which appeared to have set them up for an upset win in the best of three series.
But Abercrombie’s outfit missed a golden opportunity by losing at 65-62 at home in game two, before Galatasaray won the deciding game on Sunday decisively.
Abercrombie scored double figures in the first two fixtures (11 and 12) and ended with seven points in the third and final game.
The end of the season for Fotu’s and Abercrombie’s teams means Belgium-based Rob Loe is the lone player left flying the flag for the Tall Blacks in Europe.
Loe and Limburg United were beaten 78-64 by Oostende on Sunday to fall behind 2-1 in the best of five Scooore League semifinal series.
Limburg took game two 89-83 after being thrashed 91-62 in the opening exchange.
Loe had 10 points, four rebounds and three blocks in game two after a more subdued three points and three rebounds in the first game.
His contribution in game three was limited to four points and three rebounds after getting into foul trouble, pinged four times in just 12 minutes.
The Tall Blacks will travel to Japan, China, Latvia and Lithuania before arriving in the Philippines for their Fiba Olympic qualifying tournament from July 6-10.
Only the tournament winners book a spot in Rio, with the Tall Blacks facing the host nation and France in pool play. Steven Adams took another one for the team − then helped his Oklahoma City Thunder inflict an even more painful blow on the Golden State Warriors with their best performance of the NBA playoffs.
Adams just cannot stay out of the storyline in this Western Conference final series between his Thunder and defending NBA champions the Golden State Warriors, and that was the case again in game three as OKC thumped their rivals 133-105 to take a 2-1 lead.
Game four is back at Chesapeake Energy Arena tomorrow.
The Thunder responded splendidly to their game two defeat in Oakland with an emphatic allround performance, led by superb displays from their stars Kevin Durant (33 points, eight rebounds) and Russell Westbrook (30 points, 12 assists, eight boards).
But it was a kick to the groin area taken by Adams from rugged Warriors forward Draymond Green midway through the second quarter that emerged as one of the game’s main talking points.
Green collected Adams squarely in the most sensitive part of his anatomy when the Warriors player drove to the hoop on a drive while being defended by the 2.13m New Zealander. Adams was called for the foul as he knocked the ball loose, with Green then kicking out with his right leg and landing the painful blow.
Adams, who is having a breakout playoffs as he averages a double-double, went down in a heap and took a long time to get back to his feet, the agony written large on his face.
Well it might have been. In game two the 22-year-old Kiwi had taken a fair battering. Already carrying a sprained right thumb, he tweaked his back when Festus Ezeli landed on top of him, and then copped a knee to the groin area also from Green when the Warriors player made a layup.
Games two’s incident looked inadvertent, and received little comment apart from the obvious discomfort suffered by Adams.
The Kiwi joked between games that Green, the Warriors most verbal player, had ‘‘peaked in annoyingness’’.
But he might like to review that assessment as game three’s belowthe-belt strike appeared to border on the deliberate. After review the referees issued Green with a flagrant 1 foul (unnecessary contact), and, manfully, Adams returned to the court to knock down both free-throws.
Afterwards opinions varied wildly on both the nature of Green’s kick-out, and the possibility of it receiving further action by the NBA who set a precedent when they suspended Cavaliers backup guard Dahntay Jones for a similar incident against Toronto Raptors centre Bismack Biyombo.
Adams, who only played 18 minutes and finished with eight points and five rebounds, said: ‘‘It’s happened before. Pretty accurate, that guy.’’
Asked if he felt Green should be suspended, the Kiwi replied: ‘‘It’s not my call, mate. Just moving on.’’
But his coach and team-mates offered more definitive views.
Said Thunder coach Billy Donovan: ‘‘I’m not here to say whether it was or wasn’t intentional. I don’t know. But it has happened twice in the last two games.’’
And OKC point guard Russell Westbrook went even further. ‘‘Honestly, I think it was intentional. That’s two times in the last two games. You can’t go kicking someone in their private areas,’’ he said.
But Warriors coach Steve Kerr and Green himself both said they expected the NBA to rescind the flagrant foul.
‘‘I brought the ball over the top, he fouled me, my leg went up. I know my core is not strong enough to stop my leg halfway from wherever it was going. I honestly didn’t know I hit him,’’ Green said.
‘‘I’m sure he’ll want to have kids one day. I’m not trying to end that on the basketball court. That don’t make sense.
‘‘I [think] it will get rescinded. I’m not trying to kick him, I was following through on the shot. My leg went up. I don’t think I’ll get suspended. I don’t know how anyone could possibly say I did that on purpose.’’
Kerr said it was clearly ‘‘inadvertent’’.
‘‘I was shocked they even looked at it. I would think they would rescind it, honestly. Stuff like that happens all the time − there’s contact, people’s arms and legs flailing. If they think it’s on purpose, play the game, this stuff happens all the time.’’
Kerr, of course, would not like to lose Green for the pivotal game four.
The Thunder have won their last 10 series while leading 2-1 and a 3-1 deficit is a hole very few teams have ever climbed out of.
The Adams incident (with OKC leading 48-40) appeared to spur the Thunder as they made a massive surge which began just beforehand when the scores had been tied at 40-40.
OKC finished the half with a 17-1 run to lead 72-47 at the break, and went 32-7 either side of halftime to bust the game completely open. That enabled coach Billy Donovan to leave his Kiwi star to recover on the bench.
The Thunder got huge performances out of Durant and Westbrook who responded beautifully after being held in check in game two.
But the support was significant too as Andre Roberson (13 points, six boards), Serge Ibaka (14 points, eight rebounds) and Dion Waiters off the bench (13 points on six-of-11 shooting) all put in excellent shifts.
They won the rebounds (52-38), moved the ball much more effectively and played with a pace and aggression that the Warriors had no answer to.
The ball is now in Golden State’s court in terms of adjustments in this captivating series. And in the NBA’s in terms of whether Green’s low-blow deserves further action.