Featured image: Kieron Place Art & Photography | @kieronplaceartandphoto
Mackay Meteors captain Isaac White thrived on his battle with Brisbane Bullets NBL teammate Sam McDaniel as his team is within a game of giving the dream NBL1 North send off to Joel Khalu, but the Brisbane Capitals remain confident of upsetting the party.
Todd Blanchfield has returned to Mackay this year to team up with White and with Khalu in his farewell season as coach, the Meteors are now one-nil up in the Grand Final series after winning 91-79 at Mackay Basketball Stadium over the Capitals on Friday night.
Game 2 will be on Saturday night with the chance for the Meteors to wrap up a championship while the Caps attempt to send the series to a deciding Game 3 on Sunday.
RECAP NBL1 NORTH | GRAND FINALS GAME 1
Meteors coach Joel Khalu spent the back end of last NBL season as an assistant to Justin Tatum at the Illawarra Hawks and now will move full-time into that role meaning he will step down from his role with Mackay.
He is now win away from ending with a championship and he liked a lot of what the Meteors did despite the best efforts of Sam McDaniel for the Capitals.
"It was a real Grand Final game. Brisbane never quit and we knew that they wouldn’t. I thought we got off to a really good start with a lot of confidence early on, and then we settled into the rhythm of the game and both teams made adjustments on how they did stuff," Khalu said.
"I thought Sam McDaniel was outstanding in that first half with the plays he was making, they were unbelievable.
"We made that adjustment with Toddy defensively to try and slow him down and I thought he did an unbelievable job of taking him out of that rhythm even though he still made some big shots.
"But the biggest thing I'm proud of is holding them to 79 points and defensively our goal is always to keep teams under 80. To do that in Grand Final Game 1 is what set up the win."
Capitals coach Greg Vanderjagt knew that once the Meteors scored the game's first 11 points and caused two turnovers early that playing catch up wasn’t the best recipe for success.
However, he liked the way the Caps got back into the contest and is backing them in to get the two wins over the weekend for the championship.
"There's two more games. We came here to win a Grand Final series and that's what we still have to do. The things we talked about happened, the pace of the game, offensive rebounding and our turnovers," Vanderjagt said.
"We knew what they do and the lessons were learned, we got smacked in the mouth in the first quarter with 30 to 19, and that's the ball game right there.
"We have lapses late trying to find ways to manufacture buckets and we got away from who we are, and how we've been playing over the last 14 games where we're 12-2. We've found an identify but we got away from that tonight because we played the way they wanted to play.
"The good thing is there's still two more games and that's the great thing about the NBL1 North Grand Final series is that it's not just one and done, you've got a chance to adjust overnight and come back, and be better tomorrow."
Mackay captain Isaac White has made an NBL1 North home for himself now at the Meteors, and produced a standout performance in Game 1 with 30 points, six rebounds, four assists and two steals with 4/6 three-point shooting.
That included some fascinating battles with his Bullets NBL teammate McDaniel, which White enjoyed and is looking forward to Game 2.
"It was a bit of a blur and it was just a highly emotional environment because we're both super excited to be on this stage battling it out," White said.
"Both of us have a lot of pride in our respective teams and there's been chat going on for nine months now. I probably came out a little bit too energetic, I just need to settle myself and get into my game that way, but it was just a bit of back and forth and nothing personal.
"We know Game 2 will be a dog fight again and they'll throw their best punch, but so will we and we can't let this one slip. I look forward to the challenge."
Brisbane captain Anthony Kopcikas made all three of his field goal attempts on the night including a three-pointer for seven points and two rebounds, and he too is confident of the Caps turning things around across the weekend away from home.
"It was definitely good to bounce back from the slow start to the game and I know our team is cut out to fight back from those punches," Kopcikas said.
"It was a 12-point game in the end but it felt a lot closer than that and it just got away from us at the end. I think for the next two games it will be heading our way and the feeling within the group is pretty good.
"We kind of know what we did wrong and have already discussed quite a few wrinkles of where we can explore tomorrow that should work for us."
