Taranaki take a breather
After playing out their third National Basketball League (NBL) match in seven days on Thursday, the Taranaki Mountain Airs are ready for a much needed rest.
The Taranaki side hosted the league leading Wellington Saints on Thursday night and were unable to contain Wellington guard Corey Webster who dropped 31 points to lead his side to a 100-87 win.
The hosts started well enough to trail by 10 points at halftime – with Webster doing most of the damage for the visitors.
However, a slow start to the third quarter saw them lose touch with the visitors and ultimately be on the wrong side of a lop-sided scoreline.
Augusta Mountain Airs coach Trent Adam said it was disappointing to see his side come out at halftime and play like they did.
‘‘Missed execution on both offensive and defensive schemes created a hole that we couldn’t get out of. Going into halftime, it’s a 10-point game.
‘‘I thought we’d been doing all right but we’d been murdered on the boards.
‘‘We thought if we could get parity on the boards this was still within reach and then they come out and defend really well, and we have some miscommunication and then create a hole for ourselves. Against a quality organisation like the Saints, when you create holes, the more you dig the deeper you get.’’
In terms of trying to contain Webster, the Mountain Airs elected for length – matching both Alonzo Burton and Tylor Ongwae on him throughout the game.
Unfortunately, moving their attention to Webster opened up the paint and the Saint bigs were able to capitalise on their size advantage to build a big enough lead for the Saints starters to sit out the getting final quarter.
‘‘Corey’s got the ability to make tough shots so unfortunately you can play pretty good defence and he still just scores. There were periods where we thought we defended him fairly well and he made some tough shots, but then we’d fall asleep and he’d get a wide open look and of course he’s going to knock that down.
‘‘So it’s halftime, he’s done all the damage, and we put in some ideas to use the defensive system on him, and they come out and get layup after layup and it didn’t matter that we had changed our defence on Corey if they were just scoring layups.’’
The Saints had a size advantage as the Taranaki side were without their main paint protector Daniel Gomis due to injury.
However, despite being undersized, Xavier Shaw and Thane O’Leary held their own down low and impressed the Mountain Airs staff.
‘‘I thought Thane did really well, and X fought as hard as he could to maintain the position he had, but there he also executed on offence and was able to get to the rim and do some things.
‘‘So we believe the two of them can contribute at this level and I go away today more convinced that they can.’’
The match came after the Taranaki side beat the Southland Sharks at home last Friday and went down to the Super City Rangers in Auckland last Sunday.
After a hectic week, the Mountain Airs now get a week-long break, with their next match scheduled for next Friday against the Canterbury Rams in Christchurch.
‘‘We get a little bit of a break now to tidy up some bodies, tidy up some concepts and then start that middle third of the season.’’