NOT SHORT ON TALENT

Fatigue’s no excuse for slump: Boone

THE Short brothers are ones to watch this summer. Matt Short, who played cricket against Pakistan in Cairns late last year, is a top-order batsman and off-spinner for Victoria’s one-day side and has been earmarked as a player for the future.

His brother Sam, 19, cracked it for his first game time as a guard for Melbourne United in the NBL recently after impressing with the Ballarat Miners. MELBOURNE United enforcer Josh Boone says fatigue is no excuse for back-to-back NBL losses.

United plummeted to fifth in the standings after dropping games against championship contenders Perth Wildcats and New Zealand Breakers.

The former NBA player bristled at talk they had fallen victim to a taxing travel schedule that included trips to Perth, Adelaide and Oklahoma City for the NBL’s historic NBA preseason venture.

“That’s not really an excuse,” Boone said.

“This is what we do for a living and a little bit of fatigue from a couple of flights is not something we can use as an excuse.”

The rebounding machine kept a wasteful United in the game against the Breakers, finishing with a game-high 22 points (8-11 FG) and 14 rebounds.

Casey Prather chimed in with 20 points but stars Casper Ware and Chris Goulding were held to only 13 points – shooting 4-19 from the field.

The big-bodied Breakers forced Ware and Goulding to work through screens at the defensive end and feasted on United’s turnovers.

The visitors put them down in the second half, racing to an 11-point lead in the third quarter and silencing the sold-out 10,300-seat Hisense Arena.

“The crowd here is always wonderful,” Boone said.

“It’s been a while since we started playing this year and it was nice to finally come home and actually have some cheers as opposed to boos but unfortunately we didn’t reward them.”

United will travel to the Gold Coast this week for Saturday night’s crunch game against Brisbane Bullets.