By Marcus Uhe
Dandenong’s erratic beginning to the NBL1 season has continued after going down to Melbourne at home on Saturday night.
The Tigers, who entered the contest with an inferior record to Dandenong, looked a more cohesive side on their way to a 95-82 win.
The opening quarter was a shootout, with both sides letting the ball fly from beyond the three-point line.
The highlight of the quarter came from Mike Amius, who poked the ball away from his opponent before taking the ball the length of the floor and detonating with a vicious one-handed dunk at the other end.
Melbourne took the lead halfway through the second term and began to separate themselves, closing the half on a 15-6 run to open an 11-point lead at the break.
Their speed on the fast-break caught Dandenong napping on multiple occasions as the Tigers bolted the length of the floor to capitalise on the lack of a set defence at the other end of the court.
Deng Puoch began to display his full bag of tricks in the third term, passing, scoring and rebounding the ball for the Rangers who attempted to eat into the deficit.
But the Tigers seemed to have an answer for everything the Rangers threw at them, and headed to the final break with a nine-point advantage, despite being outscored in the third quarter by two.
Melbourne appeared a team more connected and in-sync with one-another, executing after time-out plays and finding open men more often than their hosts who relied on a more stagnant half-court offence, or single players attacking isolations.
A series of stops from the Tigers in the last term helped to further widen the gap between themselves and Dandenong, on their way to the 13-point win.
Critically, Dandenong left eight points at the free-throw line, shooting just 27 per cent from the stripe.
Sharpshooter Jack Roberts finished the leading scorer for his side with 20 points ahead of Puoch, who recorded a 13-point, 11-rebound double-double.
The Rangers’ women’s side however had no such issues, finishing with a head of steam to overrun Melbourne’s five-point advantage at the final break.
Led by Nyadiew Puoch’s 20 points, Dandenong outscored Melbourne 28-15 in the final term to finish 80-72 winners.
