Sharpshooting Goulding continues to break records

As he has across his historic NBL career, Chris Goulding delivered on the biggest stage once again.

Helping to propel his side to a Game 1 victory in the NBL24 Championship series, CG43 led all scorers with 22 points, 18 of which came from beyond the arc.

His six triples on Sunday evening did two things: moved Goulding past Derek Rucker into sixth place in all-time three-pointers made in NBL history (1174), while also breaking the record for the most three-pointers in a season in the 40-minute era of the NBL (125).

Rucker, who called the game from the sideline, praised United’s captain after the game, saying once he found his range, the result was all but over for the visiting JackJumpers.

“Once he made two or three threes, it’s too late by then, his radar is locked in,” he said.

“He has one of the best radars in NBL history, and we saw in the second half it was too much, he was hitting stepbacks and all types of shots, he had an outstanding game.”

These sentiments were echoed by Head Coach Dean Vickerman.

“I thought he found (his looks) a lot tonight,” he explained.

“He had a huge deep one, he had a massive one on an out of bounds play, he just looked so comfortable tonight with his shot.”

A three-time championship winner, Goulding knows a Game 1 victory means nothing if you’re not able to follow up the performance with more strong play.

Looking ahead to Game 2, CG43 said his group will just continue to do what they can to continue improving.

“We talk about being better every game, and every quarter we check in and see if we were better than the last,” he said.

“We talk about it at half-time, and when we’re doing that defensively it allows a little bit of freedom offensively, because you’re getting repeat use of the ball. There were a couple of iffy ones, as there always is, but we really wanted to come out and be better as a group and get a win.”

United will next head on the road for Game 2 at MyState Bank Arena on Friday 22 March before heading home for a huge Game 3 matchup on Sunday 24 March at 5:30pm.

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