Eagles pluck positives from nail-biting loss

Featured image: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

While East Perth Eagles coach Carl Filpo was still digesting a tough to take loss at the buzzer to the Perry Lakes Hawks, he reflected on the continued growth of son Nick and how he's done it by having to earn everything.

The Eagles had won three straight this NBL1 West season before hosting the Hawks on Anzac Day at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre, but it was a Perry Lakes team boosted by the inclusion of two new imports.

Jack Browder and Isaiah Moses ended up providing match winning performances for the Hawks in the eventual 100-98 win on the back of Browder's game winner with just six seconds to go.

That leaves East Perth now on a 3-2 record for the season ahead of remaining at home on Peter Campbell Basketball Arena to play host to the Warwick Senators this Friday night.

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While there was a lot to digest for coach Filpo after that loss to the Hawks and also a lot to like including the 25 points and 5/9 three-point shooting from Jonah Antonio and 23 points, four rebounds and four blocks from David Okwera, what son Nick did was impressive too.

He has become the regular starting point guard now this season on a team with plenty of firepower surrounding him. Against Perry Lakes he finished with 15 points, four assists, three rebounds and two steals in almost 34 minutes.

The Eagles were +9 with him out on the floor and his night was highlighted with a patch late where he hit a three-pointer up one end, before blocking Moses up the other and that led to a breakaway bucket in transition for Antonio.

It didn’t quite lead to a win, but it was an illustration of what he's capable of and his dad, and coach, is proud of his continued growth and the fact he's earned every bit of it with nothing whatsoever handed to him.

"He is the heart and soul and he's not the only one, but there's a few guys there now that form the core group," Carl Filpo said.

"Nick is a product of the club, of East Perth, from under-12 all the way through and a lot of people don't know but in his first game I think he had 18 points in 10 minutes, and the game winner.

"So he has earned it and that was under a different coach but as much as it might look a certain way from the outside, he does have to earn it and we are kinda hard on him sometimes.

"At the same time, he knows when he does well and when he doesn’t so he's pretty smart like that and he's developed into one of our core guys. I'm proud of that as his coach and as his dad, that's really great, and we need him out there."

Looking back on the Anzac Day loss to Perry Lakes and a few things stood out to coach Filpo that cost them in a two-point game. None more so than the final rebound count with the Hawks pulling down 43 to 32 including 14 to eight at the offensive end.

"It's been a tough one to swallow and those heartbreaker ones always are, but we just look at it as where we need to get better," Filpo said.

"We went -12 on the rebounds so that's where I sort of put it, but there's a bunch of stuff we can look at and there's a lot of learning to come out of that game. I'd like to think that we'll come out of it stronger and better."

While Perry Lakes came into Saturday night's game with just one win from four games so far this season, they suddenly became a very different team to prepare for with the arrival of their two new imports.

Not only were Moses and Browder new to the NBL1, but it was their first time playing following their respective college careers, which made it tough to scout and prepare for.

They did end up combining for 66 points with 10 three-pointers but Filpo still felt as though they could have done a better job on limiting the damage they did.

"It's tough in that situation and we knew they would be good, but you just never know. It was impressive by them because they haven't been here and haven’t played in the league before, and haven’t played professional before," Filpo said.

"Moses was Divy 1 out of East Washington and Browder was from a Divy 2 school but they were obviously great players in their own right in those places, but you have no idea how they'll adjust to NBL1.

"So we did an individual scout on how we'd seen them play and we knew they were shooters, and we didn’t do a great job early on even though we were playing them as shooters.

"We just didn’t execute early and I think that gave them some confidence so we didn’t do ourselves any favours there.

"We did adjust and I thought we did a good job of taking the shot away for a little while, but Moses came back and hit a few more shots and Browder chipped away at us the whole game.

"Then both hit massive shots at the end there and the one that Isaiah hit on David was just one of those that could have paused in time and I would have bet you money it wasn’t going in, but wow what a shot."