BULLETS TAKING AIM
Lemanis fired up over Wildcats ‘tactic’
BASKETBALL: Brisbane Bullets coach Andrej Lemanis has fired back at Wildcats counterpart Trevor Gleeson for his “disappointing” efforts to put pressure on the referees ahead of tonight’s opening match of the NBL semi-final series at Perth’s RAC Arena.
Perth mentor Gleeson set the scene for a spicy best-ofthree series when he accused the “very physical” Brisbane of using “illegal screens’’ and suggested officials let some contact go unpunished in the finals.
Lemanis and Gleeson have been coaching against each other in the NBL for years with 16 wins apiece from their 32 clashes.
Combined, they have won six of the last eight NBL titles with three championships apiece as head coaches.
Gleeson was also a Boomers assistant coach under Lemanis at the Rio Olympics but they are on opposite sides of the fence about the pre-match mind games.
“At the end of the day, I was just a little bit disappointed that that’s the tactic they would choose to take,” Lemanis said.
“They’re a club I’ve really respected, they’ve had a lot of success over time, so for them to choose to go down that path, I guess for me, ultimately, was a little disappointing.”
Lemanis said Brisbane would let their basketball do the talking with a focus on winning the rebounding battle and limiting turnovers to avoid “igniting” the Wildcats’ offence in front of 13,000-plus spectators.
“We go there with good confidence,’’ he said.
“We’ve won in Perth before. We’ve got a lot of players who have won big games in Perth before.
“It’s a great environment. As the away team you can feed off the atmosphere just as well as the home team so it’s a good place to go and play basketball.
“We’ve got to be disciplined and organised and make sure we play on the front foot.’’
Lemanis said walking the tightrope just to qualify for the play-offs was good preparation for the intensity of the finals but Brisbane could not be satisfied with just making the top four.
“Being in a couple of mustwin situations already will give the group some confidence but a sense of calm coming in,’’ he said.
“We’ve spoken about it as a group that reaching the playoffs isn’t the destination. It’s step one of what we ultimately want to achieve and that’s to go and win a championship so we are not getting too wrapped up in making the play-offs.
“It’s ‘good, well done, now let’s move on to the important business … we’ve got a couple of games to win’.’’
Twenty-three of the last 24 finals series involving Perth have been won by the team that took out game one.