Game Seven For Tab
Tagged in: Kiwis Abroad
Former Tall Blacks coach Tab Baldwin orchestrated a fourth quarter comeback to pull his U Mobitelco Cluj-Napoca from the brink of series defeat in the Romanian Basketball League Finals on Tuesday.
A 32-21 fourth quarter for the Red Caps propelled them to a 90-88 win in game six against the four-time defending Romanian champions and regular season winners CSU Asesoft Ploiesti.
Trailing by nine heading into possibly the final 10 minutes of the season, Milan Medvedj and Flavius Lapuste pulled Cluj back with a 12-4 run to start the period and then held on down the stretch at home to force a deciding game seven at Ploiesti on Friday morning (NZ time).
“They say that these are the two most exciting words in sport - game seven,” Baldwin said via email from Cluj-Napoca, a city the size of Christchurch, in the Transylvania province.
“And I can tell you it is pretty wild here. Game six was an incredible scene in Cluj and it was a hell of a comeback . . . before game six, our fans unfurled a banner, giving a pretty good indication of how they feel about me.”
The banner read: “All for you TAB, please stay!!!”.
Serbian Zoran Krstanovic finished with 28 points and 11 rebounds for Baldwin’s third-seeded Cluj, looking for their fourth championship and first since 1996.
Live score updates of game seven at around 5am NZ time will be available at www.u-mobitelco.ro and live streaming video at www.tv-net.ro.
In Australia, Kiwi Adrienne Gilbert went one assist off recording a triple-double in round 12 of the Waratah League in New South Wales.
Gilbert had 11 points (4/10 FG, 2/2 3pt, 1/1 FT), 13 rebounds, nine assists and a block in 34 minutes of her Bankstown Bruins 97-43 win over the Norths Bears, extending their winning streak to eight games.
In the South East Australia Basketball League (SEABL), former Tall Ferns forward Julie Ofsoski compiled 24 points (11/18 FG, 2/8 FT), five rebounds, a steal and block in 34 minutes of her Frankston Lady Blues 84-73 loss to the Ballarat Lady Miners in round 14, keeping them at 4-12.
In the Queensland Australia Basketball League (QABL), Shannon Proffit had seven points (2/6 FG, 3/3 FT), six rebounds, six assists, six steals and a block in 26 minutes as her Maroochydore Clippers defeated the Gladstone Port City Power 71-41 in round seven.
The Maroochydore men’s team, containing Zeke Meehl, continued to struggle, losing their seventh straight, 89-76 to Gladstone, with Meehl going pointless with a rebound and steal in 10 minutes.
