BOYS’ BASKETBALL ROUNDUP

Poway 85, Chula Vista 70--On a night when, a continent away, a couple of NBA legends were playing one-on-one on pay-per-view television, Chula Vista’s Jerome Green and Poway’s Kyle Milling had a clash of their own.

They combined for 48 points--in the first half.

Defending champion and top-seeded Poway (22-8) plays the winner of tonight’s Vista-Rancho Buena Vista game for the right to play in the Sports Arena. Chula Vista is 18-11.

The game pitted a shooter (Green) and a big man (Milling) against each other, especially in the first half.

Green was so impressive, Poway fans cheered for him to shoot the ball every time he touched it in the second half. He had 28 points at halftime--he averaged 26.6 this season--and finished with 40.

Milling had 20 by halftime and finished with 30. The 6-foot-7 post player will go to UC Santa Barbara next year, and he can expect to see a lot of what he saw when he watched Green--a 6-2 junior--let fly with one of his jump shots.

Green converted 13 of 30 shots, and his school-record eight three-point baskets tied him for fourth in the section record book. He had seven at halftime.

“That’s the best performance I’ve seen in San Diego,” said Milling, who has not scored fewer than 23 points in the last six games. “Guys were in his face and he was still putting them in deep.”

Poway Coach Doug Wealch tried to prepare his team for Green, the county’s scoring leader.

“We told them it could be a close game if he was on or a blowout if he was off,” Wealch said. “At halftime, they believed.

“We just had to slow the kid down. . . . I haven’t seen a player shoot like that in 10 or 12 years.”

The teams traded baskets while playing an up-tempo first half. After Milling tied the game with a free throw, Justin Kruse rebounded Milling’s miss on the second and gave Poway a 32-30 lead that it would not surrender. Poway took a 41-37 lead into the break, then went on a 10-2 run to open the third quarter in which five players scored.

Green was slowed in the second half by Poway’s box-in-one defense, which had Justin Kruse man-up on Green.

Milling got more support from his supporting cast than Green as Brian Nietz scored 16 points, Mitch Palmer 15, and Todd Fortney 11. Green was the only Spartan with as many as 10 points.

“That’s the kind of balance we need,” Wealch said. “ We got four guys in double figures and they had one guy with 40 points.”