Eagles get reward for improved Sunday showing

Image credit: Mark Filpo (@codexdesignstudio)

East Perth Eagles coach Carl Filpo saw a lot he didn’t like on Friday night, but he did think his team were playing the right way from the outset on Sunday and eventually were rewarded with the uplifting NBL1 West win over Goldfields Giants.

Round 9 was the first double-header weekend of the season for the Eagles starting on Friday night away to the Perth Redbacks and then backing up to host the Giants on Sunday afternoon at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre.

Friday's clash with a Redbacks team who were undermanned and having lost seven of their last eight games, but they were an inspired outfit at Belmont Oasis on their home floor and simply outworked and outhustled the Eagles.

It was a frustrating night in the end in the 12-point loss for the Eagles where they ended up being outrebounded by nine including giving up 18 offensive boards while having just 13 assist for the game, and having just three players score in double-figures.

Understandably Filpo was frustrated after the game, but he did see better signs in the second half at least to build on for Sunday.

"On the positive from that game, by half-time we knew that we were getting smashed on the boards and we gave up 15 second chance points in the first half," Filpo said.

"That's just way too many especially with some of the bigs that we have out there. So keeping them to two second chance points in the second half was a better effort but that gave us hope and promise that we could do that going into the Sunday game, and that we are capable of it.

"We were just complacent in that first half on Friday and had a lapse, and I don’t want to say we were unlucky, but a lot of the rebounds did go over our heads or towards the baseline, and landed in places you don't usually expect.

"Then to their credit, the Redbacks converted and scored from people you don’t usually expect like Cousteau Kyle and Matt Teale combining for 24 points. We can't let that happen and then (Lochlan) Cummings puts up 30 so it was definitely a deflating performance and gave us a lot to work on going into Sunday."

While playing the Giants on Sunday did give Filpo the Saturday to prepare for that match up with his team, he was a little concerned that having a 1pm tip-off would create some challenges for his players who would be thrown out of their routine a little.

"There are pros and cons to us having that day in between after Friday," Filpo said.

"I don’t know how much it really helped being able to watch them play on Saturday because I'm not sure you really learn too much that you don't already know by that stage, but the positive was our next two opponents were playing one another.

"The pros are that we did have a bit of extra rest and had more time to lock into the scout, but the feat I had was that the guys just aren’t used to playing that early.

"A team like the Giants are used to it because they do it every second week, but our guys had to wake up a lot earlier than most of them usually would and start getting ready.

"I think it's a real thing as funny as it might sound and it can be a factor and throw them out a little. The positive was we got to warm up on a court properly unlike on Friday night but the guys were still out of routine having to be at the stadium by 11am," he added.

"That was the downside and to be honest we would have preferred a double-header where we played Friday and Saturday night, but that's just the way it is. Somebody has to play these Sunday games and it all evens out in the end."

Even though East Perth would then end up playing catch up against Goldfields the entire game on Sunday, what Filpo was encouraged by was that they were playing the right way.

The had fixed the rebounding woes from Friday night and they were sharing the ball well and creating good shots, it just happened to be that they weren’t falling and that's why they trailed by as much as 11 points in the third quarter.

Then the Eagles got the reward with a 29-point to 14 final quarter to end up scoring the 79-74 victory to improve to a 4-6 record on the season ahead of this Saturday night's clash with the league-leading Warwick Senators at Warwick Stadium.

"Our assists were another area that was down on Friday night and it looked like a brand of basketball that we didn’t want to play," Filpo said.

"So for them to turn it around and play exactly how we want them to play on Sunday with that real selflessness around the team by making the extra passing, and giving up good shots for great shots was really pleasing.

"They still weren’t falling in the first three quarters but then for them to have the discipline to stick with it and continue to play the same way was a really good sign.

"They stuck at it and then got rewarded with shots that started falling and we came away with it, and had a massive fourth quarter. We kept them to only 14 and we had 29 and it was one of our best quarters of the year for sure."