Bradley shines in defeat

By JACK AMI
GUAM handed Papua New Guinea another defeat, 86-60, on day three of the Fiba Oceania Under-15 Basketball Championships at the Taurama Aquatic Centre yesterday.
PNG’s Atti Bradley scored a game-high 23 points and Morea Elavo Jr managed 11.
PNG were down 31-44 in the second quarter and 43-50 in the third and continued making silly errors to record their fourth straight loss in the boys’ competition.
Individualism by certain players was a major letdown yesterday.
The home side had players playing in all sorts of styles, were unsteady in countering the firepower of their opponents and bad timing added to their woes as in their previous matches.
Guam comfortably led in all the quarters — 25-11, 44-31, 62-53 and 88-60.
Samoa’s Blaise Aca (14), Josiah Quintanilla (13), Raylen Cajigal (12) and Caleb Espaldon (10) scored double figures.
The four consecutive losses consigned the hosts to play off for the fifth-sixth spots.
One of the aspects that made PNG their own worst enemies was their “coast-to-coast” game which resulted in a lot of turnovers from forced shots with.
That hurt them badly, as they lost their composure in defence.
The opponents had height and power advantage which meant PNG would struggle individually and that translated to their collective downfall.
The match of the day saw New Zealand stunning Australia with a 59-57 victory to improve their record of four straight wins in the boys’ division after day three.
Meanwhile, Australia walked over PNG last night to claim a 155-18 victory in the girls’ division.
Fixtures: Fri, Dec 7 – Fiji v New Zealand (girls) 11am, Guam v Fiji (boys) 1pm, Samoa v New Zealand (boys) 3pm, PNG v Samoa (girls), Australia v PNG (boys) 7pm.