National Finals | Norths hold out Rockingham

Featured image: Dan Cowley | @imagesby_dan

After celebrating NBL1 East and NBL1 West championships a week ago, it was just pride at stake on Saturday at the NBL1 National Finals for both and it was the Norths Bears prevailing 96-84 over the Rockingham Flames.

Coming off the high of their championship triumphs in their home states last weekend, losses with undermanned teams on Friday to open the National Finals in Adelaide always meant it might have been a tough consolation game to get up for come Saturday for the Bears and Flames.

Both teams already arrived missing a string of championship stars with Norths without their NBL title winning trio Fabijan Krslovic, Hunter Goodrick and Wani Swaka Lo Buluk.

Rockingham were then without their own Grand Final and two-time NBL1 West MVP, 176-game NBL veteran guard Isaac White along with fellow key players Tevin Jackson and Michael Harris.

As a result, the Bears lost to the Frankston Blues on Friday and the Flames went down to the Canberra Gunners, and they were just playing to avoid finishing in sixth place come Saturday night.

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Norths got the better of the start opening up an 11-point lead in the first quarter and still being on top 27-20 by quarter-time.

It was another 21 points to 17 in the second term for the Bears and that saw the NBL1 East champions go into half-time leading 48-37 with Lachie Bofinger up to 13 points and Robert Moore grabbing his chances with 10.

Blake Jones backed up his 45 points from Friday with 13 points in the first half too for Rockingham while Emmett Naar had eight with five assists.

That lead kept growing through the second half for Norths and got out to as much as 17 points before they settled on the 12-point victory to end their season on a winning note after securing their NBL1 East championship last Sunday on the Central Coast.

Lachie Bofinger has been a breakout star all season long for Norths and continued that with another 23 points, nine rebounds, five assists, three steals and two blocked shots on 9/12 field goal shooting.

Robert Moore finished with 18 points and four rebounds, Iggy Mitchell 16 points, six assists and five boards, Matthew Wacher 13 points and seven assists, Ben Gill 11 points and seven rebounds, and Lewis Holey nine points and 10 boards.

It wasn’t quite the repetition of the 2022 National Finals in Melbourne that Rockingham were after following their NBL1 West championship triumph last Saturday night over the Geraldton Buccaneers at RAC Arena.

Blake Jones had 45 points on Friday and another 27 with seven rebounds and three assists for the Flames with Emmett Naar delivering 27 points and 14 assists, Laquinton Ross 13 points and three rebounds, Peter Thuch seven points and six boards, and championship captain Travis Durnin seven points and eight rebounds.

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NORTHS BEARS 96 (Bofinger 23, Moore 18, Mitchell 16)

ROCKINGHAM FLAMES 84 (Jones 27, Naar 20, Ross 13)