Perth Wildcats coach Rob Beveridge has called on his players to have greater confidence in their abilities as a team following Saturday night's loss on the Gold Coast to the Blaze and coming into this Friday's clash with the New Zealand Breakers at Challenge Stadium.
There has been some positive news since the game on Saturday night though. Big man Matt Knight, who had a good game with nine points and 14 boards, went down hard late in the piece and suffered a slight concussion.
He was taken to hospital for tests, but has been given the all clear which is a good result after how nasty it looked at the time.
Click here to listen to the post-match press conference featuring Rob Beveridge and Brad Robbins
The Wildcats played an outstanding first half of basketball on Friday night on the Gold Coast to lead by as much as 21 points and still 19 at the main break. However, only 22 points resulted in the second half for the 'Cats as the Blaze ended up winning 77-74 for the second time this season.
Losses happen, but for Beveridge what disappointed him the most was the fact that his team just doesn’t seem to have the confidence level that they are actually as good as they are at times.
"We just have to keep our guys up and believing, and things like that. I'm not worried about that psychological factor at all. The biggest disappointment about it is that the team I'm coaching could be something really special and I think we showed that in the first half," Beveridge said.
"We were clinical and the defence was just pretty damn good. That's what I'm disappointed about. These boys just don’t believe in themselves and you get a bit sick of it as a coach continually trying to pump them up and tell them how good they are.
"They need a little bit more self-belief because we should have just kept going on and on. So what about the loss really, that happens but I want our boys to be a lot more confident with themselves and to get a bit more of a swagger. They train so hard and you can never question their efforts, but they just have to be a bit more cocky with the way they play."
As for Blaze point guard Adris Deleon, who was unstoppable back in the November 12 game, Beveridge was happy with the defence played on him by Damian Martin.
Deleon did only have 15 points for the night, but hit some crucial shots down the stretch that nobody could have stopped, or in fact wanted him to even take in some cases until they fell.
"I thought he just made some big time shots. A couple of them that he did make, were just wow, and we couldn’t defend a whole lot more than we did," Beveridge said.
"You do come up against some terrific players and Deleon did make some big plays, particularly that last three. As his coach, you think what a terrible shot but thank god it went in. It wasn’t a real great shot that he took, but it was a special play by a pretty special player."
