Despite a number of injury concerns, the Everton Tigers produced the season's best performance on Friday night to cruise to victory over the Guildford Heat.
Sidelined with a fractured hand, the Tigers' usual starting forward, Dzaflo Larkai, could only sit and watch as his team-mates produced a dominant performance to beat the Heat in the two sides' third meeting in under a month. The win gave Everton a 2-1 victory in the head-to-head series.
Opening the game with ten unanswered points, Everton never let Guildford within eight of their lead as they kept their season's 100% record at Greenbank alive in emphatic style. The Heat's poor start was further hampered just six minutes into the game when player/coach Chad McKnight had a hard fall, ending his evening's on-court action.
In a strong team performance from the Blues, Jerome Gumbs marked himself as one of the Tigers' most promising new signings with a game high 27 points, numerous rebounds and assists and a brilliant performance from the free-throw line.
After extending their lead in each of the first three quarters, and opening the gap to 30 points at the start of the fourth, the Tigers were able to relax and claim a well deserved win despite a late surge by Guildford to reduce the winning margin to 14 points, 84-72.
Speaking after the game, Gumbs said: "Yeah I'm pleased. We have got to progress, we have got to get better, improve on helping each other, improve on the little stuff. We are playing to be the best in the end, not the best at the beginning."
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