The Mandurah Magic geared up for the arrival of perhaps the league's highest profile recruit Scott Machado with their second win of the weekend while the Warwick Senators bounced back from their Saturday night loss in the NBL1 West Men's Division.
The two games on Sunday afternoon wrapped up Round 9 in the NBL1 West Men's Division with the home victories for the Mandurah Magic and Warwick Senators.
There were three matches that took place back on Friday night to open Round 9 with the Perry Lakes Hawks beating the Lakeside Lightning 97-81 while the Rockingham Flames defeated the East Perth Eagles 105-53 and the Mandurah Magic downed the Cockburn Cougars 91-78.
That led into a massive Saturday night in the NBL1 West Men's Division with 12 of the 14 teams in action starting with the Goldfields Giants defeating the Geraldton Buccaneers 70-62.
The Perth Redbacks also defeated the Warwick Senators 83-69, the Perry Lakes Hawks beat the South West Slammers 91-64, the Willetton Tigers downed the East Perth Eagles 90-64, the Lakeside Lightning bounced back to beat the Rockingham Flames 101-84, and the Joondalup Wolves downed the Kalamunda Eastern Suns 103-75.
There were then two more matches on Sunday afternoon to close out Round 9 in the NBL1 West Men's Division with the Mandurah Magic defeating the Kalamunda Eastern Suns 83-69 at Ray Owen Sports Centre.
Jerami Grace had a big night for the Magic with 31 points, 10 rebounds and five assists while Jermaine Malie put up 17 points, six boards and five assists for the Eastern Suns.
Then the Warwick Senators were able to bounce back from the night before to beat the Goldfields Giants 104-83 at Warwick Stadium.
Caleb Davis and Cody Ellis were huge for the Senators combining for 55 points on 10/20 three-point shooting with Jerome Reid top-scoring for the Giants with 19 points and five assists.
NBL1 WEST – 2021 MEN'S SEASON
ROUND 9 – SUNDAY
MANDURAH MAGIC 83 defeated KALAMUNDA EASTERN SUNS 69
The Mandurah Magic are not the talk of the NBL1 world after the signing of Cairns Taipans superstar, and they will be welcoming him in winning form too after a Sunday win at home against the Kalamunda Eastern Suns.
The Magic have pulled off the stunning recruitment of Machado fresh off his second NBL season at the Taipans where he led his team admirably despite their struggles on the back of a 2019/20 campaign where he was runner-up in NBL MVP voting and named to the ALL-NBL First Team.
But Machado won't be coming in as a savour at the Magic, in fact he will be joining a team already playing their best basketball this season in the time Aaron Trahair has been head coach.
They backed up a win on Friday night on the road to the Cockburn Cougars with a strong showing against the Eastern Suns on Sunday at Mandurah Aquatic and Recreation Centre.
The Eastern Suns had already lost to the Joondalup Wolves the previous night by 28 points and the Magic slowly opened up handy leads throughout the first half to be up 19-15 by quarter-time, and then 39-31 by half-time.
However, Kalamunda fired up in the third quarter displaying some of their best basketball so far this season by putting up 24 points to 15 to hold a 55-54 lead by three quarter-time.
The game was right up for grabs with a quarter to play but it was the Magic who dominated the final term with 29 points to 14 to end up winning 83-69 and improve to 5-5 on the season while Kalamunda is now 1-8.
Jerami Grace put in a standout performance for Mandurah made up of 31 points, 10 rebounds and five assists while shooting 8/16 from the floor and then being rewarded for his aggressiveness with 13/14 at the foul line.
Fred Williams also put up 20 points and three rebounds for the Magic while hitting 3/5 from downtown with Xavier Shaw contributing 16 points, six boards, three assists and two steals, and Riley Parker nine points, two boards and two steals.
Jermaine Malie ended up as the top-scorer for the Eastern Suns with 17 points, six rebounds and five assists while Brendan Dinardo added 15 points and four boards, Ryan Blanchett 14 points and seven rebounds, and Chris Johnson nine points and seven boards.
WARWICK SENATORS 104 defeated GOLDFIELDS GIANTS 83
It was a big ask for the Goldfields Giants to back up playing in Geraldton on Saturday night to then take on the Warwick Senators at Warwick Stadium at midday on Sunday.
The Giants did record the tight win over the Buccaneers in Geraldton on Saturday night, but making their job tougher on Sunday was the fact that the Senators were coming off a loss to the Perth Redbacks the previous night too.
Warwick were back to their home floor and determined to ensure they didn’t make it a double loss weekend setting the stage for a tantalising match up to close Round 9 in the NBL1 West Men's Division.
It was quite the exciting and up tempo opening to the game at Warwick Stadium too with both teams combining for 63 points with the Senators narrowly leading the Giants 32-31 by the end of the first period.
The Senators were able to maintain that pace in the second quarter with another 33 points but the Giants couldn’t quite with just the 18 points that saw the home team leading 65-49 at the half-time break.
The Giants kept in touch in the third quarter to only be 13 points down at three quarter-time but the Senators put the result beyond doubt with 22 points to 14 in the fourth quarter to deliver the 104-83 victory.
The results improves the Senators to a 7-2 record after nine rounds of the 2021 season while the Giants are 4-6 after going through plenty of challenges so far.
Caleb Davis had a tremendous afternoon for Warwick putting up 28 points, 12 rebounds, five assists and three steals including hitting 6/12 of his three-point attempts.
Cody Ellis wasn’t far behind leading the Senators with 27 points, 11 rebounds and five assists while going 4/8 from downtown.
George Pearl put up 16 points and six rebounds as well hitting 4/6 from deep with Ethan Elliott contributing 10 points and six assists, and Alier Riak 10 points and four rebounds in the absence of Justin King and with Corban Wroe getting hurt early on.
Jerome Reid is having the best season of his career to date with the Giants and he topped their scoring again with 19 points, five assists, four rebounds and two steals.
Fletcher Klasztorny also had 16 points and four rebounds for Goldfields, Tom Atkinson 13 points and four boards, Deng Kuany 11 points and eight rebounds, and Dion Collins nine points and four assists.
