Perth Wildcats coach Rob Beveridge found himself frustrated with much of the 'Cats performance in Cairns on Friday night and now he can't wait for the chance to get back on the winner's list this Sunday at Challenge Stadium against the Sydney Kings.
The Wildcats ended up losing to Cairns on Friday by nine points and much like they did against New Zealand last week, they did fight back strongly in the last quarter to get within six at one stage but it was always an uphill battle after falling down by 19 during the third quarter.
While Beveridge did like the signs in the last quarter with the Wildcats still showing fight and Matt Knight, Kevin Lisch and Damian Martin all nailing big three-pointers, what happened prior to that with Cairns controlling much of the game left him disappointed.
"In that last quarter, they played free and just went for it but that's easy to do when you are 14 or 15 points down. It was great to watch how we can play when they guys do that, but we were never going to win the game from that point," Beveridge said.
"It was too late and it was because we had let them dictate the tempo of the game. We didn’t make our open shots and far too often we turned down good shots that our guys should be taking. We just didn’t play Wildcats basketball. We were even outrebounded for the first time in a long time and we just didn’t play anything like how we try to play. It was very disappointing."
The Wildcats always knew going into the game that they had to play at a full-court, upbeat tempo because of Cairns' liking of the half-court game, but it just didn’t happen and Beveridge has no doubt that is a big reason why the Taipans came out on top.
"It was a game where it was going to come down to whichever team dictated the tempo. Cairns is a terrific half-court team and they dictated the game pretty much the whole night, and that's why they won the game," he said.
"We dictated the tempo in that last quarter and gave ourselves a chance to win, but it was too late. We just didn’t follow our game plan for a lot of the night and it was very frustrating. We had 10 turnovers in the first quarter and a lot of those were just simple mistakes.
"When you do that it creates its own pressure on you. We only shot one three-pointer in the whole first half. Yes, we did have a focus on going inside but we had players not coming off screens ready to shoot. We need to find that happy medium between our inside and outside game, and at the moment we are not doing that."
The start of the third quarter was virtually where the game was lost, though, with Cairns nailing the first 14 points of the second half. Much of that was down to three long range bombs from Andrew Warren, but Beveridge couldn’t help but point to some breakdowns that helped his cause.
"We came out to start the third quarter and they went on that run largely because we didn’t follow our game plan," Beveridge said.
"The players just broke down and on one of Warren's threes two of our guys went to double-team Crosswhite in the corner, and left Warren wide open. I was bitterly disappointed with some of the breakdowns and how the game plan wasn’t followed."
Now the Wildcats turn their attention to the Sydney Kings this Sunday at Challenge Stadium and Beveridge is looking forward to getting down to work and trying to bounce back with a win after the road losses to New Zealand and Cairns.
"Our players have to really take a look at themselves and as a coaching staff we have to look at ourselves as well, and really question if we need to make some changes. Maybe we are playing some people too much and having too much faith in them," Beveridge said.
"We might need to do some things differently. We have a lot of niggles right now and a lot of guys are hurting, so their bodies will get a rest over the next couple of days and then we will come out next week and be firing to take on Sydney."
