JAKARTA (Indonesia) - Australia remain undefeated in the Asia Cup after starting the campaign in Jakarta with a 78-60 win over Jordan.

Thon Maker did not disappoint in his Asia Cup debut, posting 23 point, 8 rebounds, and 3 three-pointers. He dazzled the crowds with some thunderous dunks and was impressive in general in an all-around performance. An additional force came from young big man Samson Froling, who posted 16 points and 8 rebounds of his own.

Samson Froling

Jordan did not back down and went on a 10-0 run in the third quarter, holding Australia scoreless for a solid 5 minutes, but it was not enough to offset their slow start. Ahmad Al Dwairi shined in his first Asia Cup since 2013, posting an all-around effort of 10 points, 16 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 blocks.

Turning point

For a span of nearly 8 minutes from the middle of the third quarter until early in the fourth quarter, Australia were held to only 2 points which game Jordan a ray of hope for a comeback rally. Clinton Steindl and Thon Maker made sure to put an end to that with a couple of three-pointers and free-throws for an 8-0 run in the span of 1 minute.

Game hero

Australia weren’t exactly in the position of needing to be saved by a hero, but the high level performance from Maker certainly gave them a big boost. Aside recording the team-high in scoring and tying the team-high in rebounds, Maker also recording one block which does not fully display how big of an impact he was on defense.

Stats don't lie

In general, Jordan are a pretty good shooting team. Through the World Cup Qualifiers, they are currently the fourth best three-point shooting team at 32.4 percent. In this game, they were held to only 17.9 percent shooting.

While Jordan were certainly going through a shooting slump, a lot of the credit definitely goes to the Australia defense.

They said

"I’m leaving with a better feeling in the second half, we fought hard, we did better defensively and we closed the gap." - Jordan Head Coach, Wesam Al-Sous

"Don’t forget, Australia are a good team, we didn’t play defense for like 5 minutes and they hit 5 threes in a row and that was a game. Like coach said, against a team like Australia you can’t relax on defense." - Zaid Abbas, Jordan

"I think we won the game in the first half, we were confident and we knew that we didn’t want to start the tournament out flat and played very hard." - Mitch McCarron, Australia

 FIBA