Bullets out to learn from Doomsday Double
BRISBANE coach Andrej Lemanis says his side needs to land knockout blows against competition heavyweights after New Zealand claimed a 90-82 victory over the Bullets in Auckland yesterday.
For the second time in three days, Brisbane went toe-to-toe with a genuine NBL title contender for long stretches only to find themselves on the canALL vas in the fourth quarter.
An undermanned Brisbane finished the modern-day version of the “Doomsday Double” with a 90-85 defeat at the hands of the second-placed Perth on Friday night and yesterday’s loss to the top-of-thetable Breakers to be seventh on the ladder with a 3-6 win-loss record.
But Lemanis said it was too early to count out Brisbane, with the NBL heading into an 11-day hiatus due to FIBA World Cup qualifiers.
“There’s no such thing as an honourable loss … but there was a lot of good stuff again in terms of intent, spirit and effort areas. We got in the battle,” Lemanis said.
“There’s a few things we can clean up and improve on, especially at key moments.
“That’s the next challenge for us – when the game is on the line to have a true comfort level about what we need to do.
“There comes a time when you have to lock in and make a bit of a stand and we are still finding a way to do that.
“There’s things we can take from this weekend that we can build on.
“We feel like we are a good basketball team. It’s important we don’t feel the weight of our results on our shoulders.”
Brisbane led by nine points midway through the third quarter at a sold-out Spark Arena but the Breakers seized back the momentum with a series of long bombs and kept the Bullets at bay in the final term.
Import Perrin Buford was strong for Brisbane with 18 points, eight rebounds, two assists, two blocks and a steal while fellow American Travis Trice had 17 points, five rebounds and seven assists.
Perth belted Melbourne in the other game yesterday.