Perth Wildcats have overcome a 16-point deficit to end the Gold Coast Blaze season 82-78 in a fierce encounter at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on Tuesday night.
A sublime final term from Kevin Lisch led the Wildcats to the win; the slippery import was in everything at both ends and had 11 of his 18 in the final five minutes as the Blaze got stage fright.
Perth will happily take the win and rest for 10 days with their grand-final opponent yet to be decided, but a final quarter meltdown will haunt the Blaze all offseason.
With the Wildcats surging hard, the Coast still led by as many as 12 in the closing minutes but their ball rotation stagnated as players tightened up with no-one but James Harvey stepping up to take the big shot.
That fact made it easy for the visitors who clamped down on the star shooter to deprive the gun-shy Blaze of options.
Perth Coach Rob Beveridge conceded Gold Coast dominated much of the match but praised his men for standing up at crunch time.
“That was a get out of jail free card, right there,” Beveridge said.
“But basketball matches are about 33 minutes of feeling each other out and then seven minutes of business; when it came to business time our guys got the job done.”
The Blaze began with punishment and then rolled out the panache with the big men laying the platform for the shooters to do their thing.
Inspired skipper James Harvey was happy to take almost any shot presented him on his way to 28 points and he was supported by apprentice Chris Goulding (18 points) who tallied his yield in bunches.
But after leading for 38 minutes it all came down to the stretch where veteran Martin Cattalini and young-guns Damian Martin and Kevin Lisch had all the answers.
Martin showed terrier-like qualities to shut down Adam Gibson for much of the match and had four steals as proof; Cattalini led the way at both ends, calling the shots and marshalling the troops while Lisch glided his way to the hoop, fed his teammates and pulled the trigger from downtown.
Kiwi international Mika Vukona was brutal down-low. Much of his impact won’t make it to the stat-sheet but his hustle plays and commitment were as pivotal as any of Harvey’s baskets. But in the end it didn’t matter.
Scoring opened in a fashion not expected by many with Kiwi centre Craig Bradshaw cashing in from downtown. Next play, Gibson found Bradshaw in the post and the big man signified his intentions further with a strong move for two.
Gibson filled a triple of his own and the home side had jumped to an 8-3 start – imperative after letting the first game get away early in Perth.
A hectic opening to the match was halted when Bradshaw picked up his second foul and was forced to sit.
When play resumed the intensity only went up. The commitment from both sides was evident when a streaking Harvey went to the hole hard, only to be met by Martin at the ring with a heavy foul.
Anthony Petrie and Luke Schenscher tangled, as did Erron Maxey and Jesse Wagstaff before Steven Weigh collected Gibson bringing a wild roar from the crowd.
Gibson and Harvey took a break with less than four minutes to play in the term and Martin Cattalini quickly found Galen Young on a backdoor cut to even the scores at 11.
Blaze missing firepower was quickly restored when a confident Goulding came off the bench to nail an off balance three from a metre behind the arc. The swingman repeated the dose seconds later to set the crowd alight.
Late baskets from Young and Cattalini closed the gap to two at the first break.
Perth Wildcats 82 (Lisch 18, Redhage 14, Schenscher 11)
Gold Coast Blaze 78 (Harvey 28, Bradshaw 18, Goulding 16)
@ Gold Coast Convention Centre, 23/02/10. Crowd 3,699.
