NBL1 North Recap | Men's Grand Final Game 1

After a dramatic build up all week for the NBL1 North Men's Grand Final for 2022, it was the Gold Coast Rollers who proved too strong in Game 1 on Friday night beating USC Rip City by 15 points.

Rip City had produced a scintillating two performances over the first two weeks of the finals to reach the Grand Final in the NBL1 North for 2022, but at the centre of what they did was the league's MVP Kouat Noi.

However, the focus during the week quickly became whether or not his new NBL club the Sydney Kings would release him to play in the Grand Final Series this weekend now that training has gone up a notch at the Kings ahead of NBL23 with the NBL Blitz in Darwin now just a fortnight away.

The end result was somewhat of a compromise with the Kings deciding to not allow Noi to play on either on Friday or Sunday as to not risk overload him with his commitments to pre-season training, but he would be allowed to play in Saturday's Game 2.

So USC was without the MVP for Friday night's Game 1 and just to add salt into the wounds the Rollers welcomed back former Brisbane Bullets All-First NBL Team member Lamar Patterson from a hamstring injury.

Once Gold Coast worked their way on top in the second quarter, they stayed in charge the rest of the way to end up winning 101-86 on the back of 32 points and 10 rebounds from Tanner Krebs, and 24 points and eight assists from Jason Cadee.

That now sets up Game 2 on Saturday night in the same building with Gold Coast looking to secure the championship for 2022 while Rip City welcomes back Kouat Noi and will be hoping to force the decider on Sunday.

NBL1 NORTH – 2022 MEN'S SEASON
GRAND FINAL GAME 1 – FRIDAY NIGHT

GOLD COAST ROLLERS 101 defeated USC RIP CITY 86

The NBL1 North Grand Final Series had quite the fascinating build up all week and in the end it was the Gold Coast Rollers welcoming back a superstar and USC Rip City being without their MVP that proved the major difference in Game 1.

The Grand Final Series in the NBL1 North Men got underway on Friday night at Carrara Stadium with the Rollers playing host to Rip City for the start of the best-of-three game series.

All the talk during the week was on whether the Sydney Kings would release the league's MVP Kouat Noi to play or not, and in the end they decided he could play Saturday's Game 2, but not Friday's Game 1 or Sunday's Game 3.

At the same time, Gold Coast welcomed back former Brisbane Bullets and New Zealand Breakers NBL import Lamar Patterson from a hamstring injury, but they were still without Preston Le Gassick.

The stage was set for the opening contest of the series on Friday night and it was Rip City who shook off the absence of Noi to start strongly and to end up leading 27-21 by the quarter-time break.

Gold Coast needed to respond and were able to do that with Jason Cadee running the ship and Donovan Mitchell and Tanner Krebs stepping up, the Bullets NBL trio soon helped the Rollers work their way on top of the contest.

Gold Coast went on a 10-0 scoring streak in the second quarter to end up outscoring Rip City 29 points to 11 to go into the half-time break leading 50-38.

It was more of the same in the third quarter with another 8-0 run from the Rollers helping the regular season champs open up a 22-point lead.

That grew to 27 points in the fourth quarter and while Rip City did take some confidence out of how they finished the game including scoring 13 straight points, but Gold Coast still ended up winning 101-86 to take the 1-0 series lead.

The Rollers ended up on top in most areas of the contest pulling down 52 rebounds to 43 while shooting at 50.0 per cent from the game and 40 per cent from deep compared with 38.8 per cent for USC and 34.6 per cent three-point range.

Tanner Krebs once again came up huge for Gold Coast as he prepares for another NBL season at the Brisbane Bullets. He finished with 32 points and 11 rebounds on 12/18 shooting from the field and 4/8 from three-point land.

Jason Cadee added 24 points, eight assists and five rebounds with Donovan Mitchell contributing 19 points and 17 rebounds, and Lamar Patterson 15 points, three boards and two steals as he got through 18 minutes in his return.

Isaih Tueta finished with 20 points, three rebounds and two assists for Rip City while Eric McAlister contributed 19 points and 11 boards, Wani Swaka Lo Buluk 17 points, nine rebounds and three steals, and Verle Williams 16 points, nine assists and four boards.