A home playoff is not always an advantage.
The Perth Wildcats ploughed through the regular season to gain home court in the first round, but they were left licking their wounds after a pair of cranky Crocodiles took out their frustrations on having to travel west for work.
Fortunately for Townsville, John Rillie was nowhere near his laptop.
Clearly his blogging and podcasting during the season was merely just a distraction to keep him occupied until the playoffs began.
Rills flipped the switch into beast-mode, using the presence of former 2004 Hawks Ben Knight and Adam Caporn to help visualise Conner Henry as Brendan Joyce.
The last time Rillie went off this nutty was the 45 he dropped on the Hawks to send them packing from the 2004 semis.
This was a truly vintage outing, lighting up for 34 with only four of those coming from less then 20 feet beyond.
He drilled ten from the land of plenty, and the bulk of those were stupid-ridiculous-Reggie-Miller-good.
While Rillie was mostly at his mild mannered Billy Hoyle best (he did give the crowd a subtle silence gesture after his eighth triple), Corey Williams channelled Sidney Deane to a tee and the 2009 version of White Man Can't Jump was in full effect.
Homicide missed just three shots (a three, a contested layup and jumper from the top of the key) for 28 points in 40 animated minutes of barking and chest-pumping.
He had it flowing like he was ballin back at Rucker Park (or the Aspen country club), impressively swishing three mid-range jumpers in the forth.
The Silver Surfer slammed the last points of the game and then did the Mia Hamm, streaking down court for the final three seconds waving his jersey.
The 187-man then proceeded to give a ringing endorsement for McDonalds at the FOX Sports camera, proclaiming; "this is what we about, this is what the fuck we about", as he pointed to the golden arches on his jersey.
After hijacking Rillie's on camera interview, Williams told Andrew Gaze all about it and the love he felt from the crowd.
He later clarified in the locker room he was referring to "Croc Nation", pointing to the croc on his jersey this time.
[Note: I accept the nonsense surrounding the "Red Sox Nation" phenomenon of 2004, 2005, but there's no such thing as "Celtic Nation", so let's just stop it there. Don't even get me started on "Croc Nation". You'll be telling me there's a "Hawks Nation" soon.]
The Crocs now get to take a bite out of the Dragons in the semi-finals starting on Tuesday, if they can stay agitated away from their habitat they'll return to the Swamp one win away from the big dance.
Game Notes:
Ben Wallace was wearing a "Rosel Ellis costume" providing 13 rebounds, four steals and three points (1-of-4 fgs, 1-of-5 fts) in 39 minutes. Rillie gave the old legs a 44-minute workout and Conner Henry was probably surprised to see Rillie go off like that. Scott Fisher might as well have been coaching that game.
