Anstey on Tigers Championship anniversary: “No one gave us a chance”

Coming into the 2005/06 NBL season, no one was picking the Melbourne Tigers to achieve much of anything.

Set to play their first season without the trio of Andrew Gaze, Lanard Copeland and Mark Bradtke in 13 years and coming off a quarter-final exit the season before, expectations were somewhat muted on what Melbourne would be able to achieve.

The team would retain key pieces such as Dave Thomas, Stephen Hoare and Darryl McDonald, while role players David Stiff, Rashard Tucker and Daryl Corletto all stepped into larger roles.

The biggest new addition to the lineup came in the form of Chris Anstey, who was returning to the team he started his career with after over a decade honing his craft in the NBA, Europe and with rival NBL teams.

Externally, the group was dismissed, however it didn’t take long for Anstey and his new teammates to figure out that the team was capable of something special.

“Rewind to the start of the season and no one gave us a chance,” Anstey said.

“We read some of those preseason predictions and not many people had us finishing in the top four, let alone challenging for a championship. We just had this confidence in our group that we could do whatever it took to win.

“We knew we could do something preseason. We won the preseason tournament and got a look at Sydney who had won the past three championships.

“We were transitioning from a team who from a scoring perspective were really reliant on Gaze, Copeland and Bradtke, and we had to find our own identity.

“That improvement was always going to come from everybody improving, not just one or two stars coming in to change everything.”

After a hot start to the season, racking up four straight wins, the lineup faced some adversity, twice going down to the reigning Champion Kings in a stretch of four losses in six games.

For anyone thinking this may have been the team unravelling, the Tigers proved everyone wrong, going 19-3 across the remainder of a regular season.

This included a revenge win over Sydney; a moment Anstey believes solidified the belief within the team that they could beat anyone.

“Everybody was talking about Kings being invincible, and I remember talking to Dmack about the game coming up and whether we thought we could beat them,” Anstey explained. 

“We went around the room and asked who thought we could beat Sydney and everyone raised their hands. After we went out and won that game, we had an expectation to win every game we played.

“It took a while for everyone to realise just how valuable they were. All of our players had extremely high basketball IQ. 

“It was very much an equal opportunity group. We weren’t the most athletic and certainly not the youngest, but I could go through every single player and talk about the value they brought to the team. 

“We understood the value of good choices and we knew we weren’t going to beat ourselves.”

Ultimately, the Tigers would close the regular season with the second best record in the league, with Anstey claiming his first league MVP in the process.

This set up a Semi-Final matchup with the Perth Wildcats, who had won a pair of single-elimination road games to earn the right to face Melbourne.

One of the few teams that had beaten the Tigers in the regular season, Perth looked to seize a golden opportunity to force the series to a decisive third game after Rashard Tucker missed two late free throws in Game Two, sending the game into overtime.

Despite this, Anstey says the mental toughness his team had forged throughout the regular season allowed them to lock in and pick up the road victory.

“That could have broken other teams, missing that opportunity, but the tightness of the group allowed us to come together and win the game in overtime.

“It didn’t matter what we were going through, we knew we could win. Any one of us would have given ‘Tuck’ those two free throws in that situation, and had he missed them we had faith that he would still do what we needed in overtime.

“It was all about knuckling down and trusting our process.”

Advancing to their first Championship series since the 1997 title victory, the task was set for the Tigers; ending the Kings’ reign on top of the NBL without home court advantage.

While this may have seemed insurmountable for some teams, it was something this Melbourne lineup appeared specifically designed to achieve.

“We practiced very little because we knew we had to conserve every bit of energy we could going up against the Kings,” Anstey said.

“We knew we could beat them, and (Head Coach) Al (Westover) just trusted us to rest up and get the process right. We watched film, we did what we needed to do and we were ready to go.

“There was never any level of panic about the fact we were in a grand final series because we knew that we knew what we needed to know.”

Game One was a battle. Anstey and Tucker helped the Tigers control the glass for the majority of the game, while Thomas scored 23 points to hand the Kings just their second home loss of the season.

Back at home for Game Two, the drama levels reached new heights, as Melbourne erased a fourth quarter deficit to force overtime, where they would place one hand on the Championship trophy with a 103-99 win.

Anstey was a force in the contest, finishing with 30 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

Looking to end Sydney’s dynasty on their home court in Game Three, Melbourne had to dig deep after going down nine to close the first period.

Despite managing their second-lowest scoring game of the season, it was the depth of the squad that proved the difference, with six players scoring in double-figures.

While it was far from the team’s best performance, Anstey says Game Three was a microcosm of their season as a whole.

“I think everyone that’s won a championship knows that it’s impossible to play your best game in a grand final series, but you can always give your best effort, and that’s just what we did throughout the season. 

“We were very consistent in the way that we played. We didn’t have to change our process of what we were doing. We treated that series just as another three games that we needed to win.”

In the end, the Tigers would finish with an 88-83 victory, claiming the Championship with a perfect 5-0 Playoff record.

Now, 20 years on, Anstey is excited to celebrate the achievement together on Thursday 19 February when Melbourne United host the South East Melbourne Phoenix inside John Cain Arena from 7:30pm.

“I think everybody knew what we did was pretty damn special.

“It’s going to be amazing to have guys coming in from the other side of the world to celebrate this as a team.

“There were a number of guys that had been on the Tigers for years, and for them to have their moment away from some of the superstars that came before them was very special.

“A night like Thursday is about them and celebrating what they were able to do for the club.”

The best way to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the 2005/06 Melbourne Tigers is to secure your seat today via Ticketek.com.au.

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