Perth Wildcats coach Rob Beveridge came away from Thursday's six-point loss in New Zealand to the Breakers proud of the courage shown by his team to continue to fight despite a flat shooting spell in the third quarter, and he believes there were plenty of positives to take out of the contest.
While the Wildcats now have games against Cairns, Sydney, Adelaide and the Taipans again before the March 4 rematch with the Breakers at Challenge Stadium that will decide the season-series that is now tied at 1-1, Beveridge has no doubt there was plenty to like about the 'Cats effort on Thursday.
Click here to listen to the post-match press conference with Rob Beveridge and Damian Martin
The Wildcats had been able to recover from an 11-point first quarter deficit to lead by four early in the third, but the Breakers then went on a 17-0 run as the 'Cats shooting dried up.
New Zealand then led by as much as 14 during the last quarter, but the Wildcats continued to fight and got that back to six and Beveridge was proud of those never-say-die qualities.
"We take enormous amount of positives out of that. For us to come over against the current champions who have a tremendous team and you know whenever you come to New Zealand you are in for a battle. For us to only go down by six in the end is pretty damn good," Beveridge said.
"That was a high quality game. We are reasonably happy with the way that we played but we just didn’t make our shots when it counted, and they did.
"I thought that was a tremendous battle. They broke away a little bit, but the way we fought back is what really good teams do. We could have laid down when you are down by 14 points and it could have blown out to 20 easily, but the guys kept getting after it and I thought that was pretty special.
"We fought it out incredibly well and I am really proud of the fight the guys showed. They just kept fighting. We walk away with our heads held high. It was a sell out crowd, it was really loud in there and a terrific environment to play basketball. They didn’t put us away though. We only lost by six and take plenty out of it."
Beveridge felt that the main difference in the end that led to the Breakers winning was the scoring and shooting of the 'Cats that dried up in the third quarter. While they didn’t shoot at a great clip most of the game, it was magnified in that third period.
"In the third quarter we had plenty of open looks and we just couldn’t make a shot. Defensively I thought we started the game very average and they scored 31 points to quarter-time after we had been keeping teams to below 70, but after that I thought we were very good defensively. We took them out of their offence but we just fell in a hole in that third quarter and couldn’t score," he said.
"We didn’t knock down open shots and that was probably the biggest thing. Both teams compete and you can't question the effort either team the way we get after each other. They just play hard and want to win. We didn’t shoot the ball well enough, though, when it counted and we lived and died by the three-point shot in the third quarter.
"That's what put us in the hole. We just didn’t shoot the ball well from the perimeter. We had lots of open looks and we simply didn’t make them. Obviously that's an area we need to address and we haven’t been happy with the way we have been shooting the ball, and that's going to be a big emphasis for this week."
The rivalry with New Zealand in recent seasons has certainly been a heated and exciting one, and Beveridge now is looking forward to hosting them in The Jungle on March 4 and then hopefully battling them at some point again in the playoffs.
"I don’t know if it's about not liking each other, but we are very competitive teams and we both desperately want to win. We go out and play as hard as we can, and it was definitely one of the best games of the season that anybody would have watched," Beveridge said.
"After the game they celebrated a fair bit and we will remember that one when they come back here. They put so much emotion into that game and they don't want to get ahead of themselves. We just want to go about our business. Yes, we lost and we have to get better in certain areas and that's the way I look at it.
"We have no doubt we can beat New Zealand in New Zealand. To go down in that game only by six after shooting the ball very poorly with our defence very good after the first quarter so we will hang our hats on getting better offensively. Hopefully we will come up against them in the finals."
