THE Australian Boomers continued their momentum and pressure from late in Game 1 to dominate Game 2 of the Sino-Australia Challenge crushing an ill-disciplined China 85-64 in front of a good crowd at Challenge Stadium on Saturday night.

China dominated most of the first game of the series on Thursday night also at Challenge Stadium but when the Boomers' defensive pressure went up in the fourth quarter, they capitulated and Australia ended up winning 97-95 in overtime.

Then from the outset on Saturday night the Boomers' defensive pressure particularly the full-court press was on song and China could not get the ball up the floor easily or get into any of their offensive sets, and they did not handle that at all.

The end result was the Boomers recording a crushing win by 21 points to now lead the series two games to nil with the last two matches to take place in China on Friday and Sunday.

The way China handled the pressure from the Boomers and the fact they were behind by double-figures virtually the whole game left a lot to be desired as well.

The Chinese coach Gong Luming acted in embarrassing fashion all night constantly complaining to the referees, coming onto the court on numerous occasions and laying his hands on the officials.

He received one technical foul in the first quarter and easily could have received a second, which he eventually did late in the game with just under three minutes to go.

However, he refused to leave the arena and threatened to take his entire team with him if he left, but eventually order was resumed and the game was played.

However, his players also didn’t act in a way you would hope or expect from a group representing their country in international basketball.

Constant complaining without merit, taking cheap shots at Australian players and being called for unsportsmanlike fouls all showed that the Chinese team did not handle being virtually non-competitive in the contest at all well.

However, much of that is a credit to the way the Boomers played with the full-court pressure and overall defence outstanding for the entire match and because that meant that China couldn’t play how they wanted, the opposition grew distracted, frustrated and ill-tempered.

Boomers coach Andrej Lemanis had every reason to be proud of the way his team played to force China to distraction and to then also remain calm in bizarre circumstances with their opposition losing their cool.

Every member of the Boomers squad handled themselves perfectly in difficult circumstances.

The performances of the Boomers was outstanding all night with West Australian product Mark Worthington top-scoring with 14 points, four assists and three rebounds while shooting 5-of-6 from the field and nailing a three-pointer.

Wollongong Hawks point guard Rhys Martin also played well finishing with 13 points with another WA product Luke Nevill again impressive with 12 points, three rebounds and an assists on the back of shooting 5-of-7 from the floor.

Brock Motum backed up a strong game in Thursday night's overtime win with another 10 points and six rebounds in just 12 minutes of court time with Lucas Walker impressing again with nine points, seven rebounds and three assists while playing a team-high 25 minutes.

Lemanis was happy overall with the performance of his team as he summed up the game.

"I was really pleased with our defence to keep them to 64 points at 40 per cent, so that was a good defensive effort. Keeping them to two points in those first five minutes really set the tone. We made some adjustments after playing them the other night and that gave us the chance to do some scouting," Lemanis said.

"The players had the chance to implement those scouts and I thought there was a nice focus and intensity to the group when we came out to start the game. I'm really pleased for the most part with the defence.

"I thought the negatives defensively were that we let them get too many offensive rebounds, we gave up 10, and they had their way with us in the post there for a period of time when they were posting up our guards. We just let that happen.

"This series for us is all about learning, getting better and improving with a new group. That will be good for us to absorb that and implement some strategies to be better in those areas in particular in game three."

Australian Boomers 85 (Mark Worthington 14, Rhys Martin 13, Luke Nevill 12) defeated
Team China 64 (Li Mu-Hao 15, Ding Yan Yu-Hang 10)

Article by Chris Pike