Tasmania drops game one of GF Series

Tasmania has fallen to a 95-78 loss in game one of the Hungry Jack's NBL Grand Final Series. 

After a tough, defensive showdown in the first half which saw Sydney lead 43-40 going into the break, the Kings were able to break the shackles of the JackJumpers in the second half to put up 52 points on the way to the eventual 17-point win.

The 78 points the JackJumpers scored can be a winning score for the league's newest team, but they just couldn’t put the clamps on the Kings in the second half with the home team shooting 54 per cent from the field for the night and going 11/23 from downtown.

The JackJumpers will be disappointed to have given up the 95 points on 54 per cent shooting, but will also feel they can improve on their own 25/70 per cent 35 per cent moving forward. They did, however, go 13/33 from beyond the arc and 15/19 at the foul line.

However, 12 second half turnovers were also uncharacteristic from Tasmania after just two in the opening half with the Kings scoring 20 points off those in the finish along with 42 points in the paint to 20.

Jack McVeigh put up 14 points for Tasmania, MiKyle McIntosh 14, Clint Steindl 13, Josh Adams 13 (despite shooting 4/18) and Josh Magette 10 to go with eight assists.

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth quickly turned his focus to Sunday's Game 2 afterwards.

"It's just one game. If they had have won by one or by 50, it's still just one game and it's a series," Roth said.

"It's the same thing to what we did against United when we lost the first game there. We'll learn from it and we've got 36 hours to kind of flip the script and go back through it, tidy up some things and go on to Sunday."

"It is what it is, we flipped the ball around and it just wasn’t a very good second half for us."

Sydney scored the first five points of the Grand Final with Jarell Martin putting up the first bucket. It took Tasmania almost three minutes to open their account and eventually that was with a triple to Jack McVeigh.

He soon hit another and Josh Magette put the JackJumpers up 8-7. The Kings were again able to pick up some momentum with three balls to Jaylen Adams and Angus Glover, and a four-point play from DJ Vasiljevic to go up five.

However, Tasmania kept the deficit at four by quarter-time but early in the second quarter the Kings were up seven which would be the biggest lead of the opening half.

Tasmania weren't spooked, though, and three-pointers from Sam McDaniel and Josh Adams quickly had them back within a point, before Magette hit from beyond the arc to tie scores up.

It was only on the back of a couple of late three-point bombs from Ian Clark that saw Sydney go into half-time leading 43-40. That was despite the home team having nine turnovers to two, and just the two offensive boards to nine in the opening half.

Another two Tasmania triples from McVeigh kept the visitors in touch in the first half of the third quarter, but then it was the MVP who took over for the Kings. Adams hit seven quick points but when he stretched out for a layup, he appeared to straight his hamstring.

A run of four points from Clark and then a triple from Shaun Bruce in his 250th game helped see Sydney extend their advantage to 71-58 by three quarter-time.

Even though Adams sat out the fourth quarter with ice on his hamstring, Sydney still put up another 24 points to stave off any brief flurries from the JackJumpers and end up taking Game 1 by 17 points.

Game 2 will be at Hobart's MyState Bank Arena on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL FINALS – GRAND FINAL GAME 1

SYDNEY KINGS 95 (Adams 18, Clark 17, Vasiljevic 14, Cooks 14)
TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 78 (McVeigh 14, McIntosh 14, Adams 13, Steindl 13) 

Sydney leads best-of-five series 1-0

BOX SCORE