JackJumpers keep making history winning fourth straight

The Tasmania JackJumpers keep making history backing up the best first-quarter of #NBL22 to turn into the franchise's first ever road win beating the defending champion Melbourne United 94-85 on Sunday.

It was the first game for the JackJumpers at John Cain Arena and 8499 fans turned out for the Sunday afternoon battle with Melbourne home for the first time since December 19.

However, the JackJumpers had won three straight coming into the game and what they delivered in the first quarter was remarkable. They put up 36 points in the highest scoring quarter of any team this season.

They continued the charge in the second term as well to go into half-time up 12 with MiKyle McIntosh stepping up with the best performance of his NBL career with 13 points.

Melbourne was always going to fire back and they did. Tasmanian-born Chris Goulding fired United to grab the lead during the third quarter, but the JackJumpers responded with the last 11 points going into three quarter-time.

It was then Jo Lual-Acuil who fired Melbourne back to the lead to start the fourth quarter on the way to a career-best 26 points and 21 rebounds. However, once again the JackJumpers answered.

This time, the response sealed the win for the JackJumpers as they won away from Tasmania for the first time in club history and fired themselves to a fourth straight win to be knocking on the door of the top four.

There was a whole lot to like for the JackJumpers including the career-best night of 16 points and four rebounds for MiKyle McIntosh. Jack McVeigh also provided plenty of inspiration and production with 17 points, three rebounds and two steals.

Josh Adams put up 16 points, four rebounds and three assists with Josh Magette adding 11 points and six assists, Will Magnay nine points and four boards, Matt Kenyon nine points and three rebounds, and Sam McDaniel seven points and six rebounds against team he helped to a championship.

It was an understandably delighted JackJumpers coach Scott Roth afterwards.

"It's a huge growth curve for us obviously. We've had some bumps along the way but we're slowly starting to figure some things out," Roth said. 

"To come in this building and compete like we did against the defending champions, we bent a little bit but we didn’t break and held our composure. We made the right plays down the end and we are just thankful, happy and lucky to get out of here with a win."

The JackJumpers were chasing their first road win and while it was an ominous task on the road to the defending champions who were stung from a last up loss, they weren’t showing any intimidation.

Jack McVeigh was coming off his best game for Tasmania and scored his team's first six points and then on the back a triple from Josh Magette and two of them by Josh Adams, the JackJumpers led 15-9.

Chris Goulding shook off his shooting slump to steady Melbourne with a triple of his own, and while United weren’t horrible offensively with 23 points on 10/18 shooting, the JackJumpers were just unstoppable.

MiKyle McIntosh produced the best quarter of his NBL career with nine points and the JackJumpers closed the term on a 17-4 run to lead at quarter-time 36-23 on the back of the best quarter from any team this season.

Tasmania's lead was back out to 15 as well on three separate occasions early in the second quarter before again it was a three from Goulding that steadied the home team.

However, Matt Kenyon responded up the other end with the next five points and on the back of the 13 from McIntosh and 11 from Adams for the half, the JackJumpers were still up 57-45 at the major break.

The expected Melbourne charge came in the third quarter and it was sparked by Goulding. The captain hit three triples in the first five minutes and got fouled twice on three-point attempts as his team started the half on a 19-4 run.

They even took the lead and picked up all the momentum, but the JackJumpers couldn’t have been more impressive with their response. It started with three-pointers to McIntosh and McDaniel before Fabijan Krslovic also connected from deep.

That saw Tasmania close the quarter with the last 11 points to lead 73-66 but again you always expected United to fire back, and they did. It was Lual-Acuil leading the charge on the way to his career-best night.

He scored the first eight points of the quarter and suddenly United were back in front and it was easy to think they'd run away with it from there. But that's far from what happened and Tasmania got the lead back with a Magette three and never again surrendered it.

McVeigh was huge again down the stretch including a dagger three with 52 seconds left. The JackJumpers then scored seven of the last eight points to record their first ever road NBL win.

The JackJumpers remain on the road against the South East Melbourne Phoenix next Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 10

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 94 (McVeigh 17, Adams 16, McIntosh 16) 

MELBOURNE UNITED 85 (Goulding 29, Lual-Acuil 26, Dellavedova 11)

BOX SCORE