Giants lack bite against Wolves
Goldfields Giants coach Marcus Taylor accepted a sizeable portion of the blame in the wake of the team's 14th SBL defeat of the season against Joondalup on Saturday night.
Taylor's charges made a bright start against the league's sixth-placed side, but they were unable to close the deal in a 103-97 loss.
Former NBL star Adrian Majstrovich contributed 23 points on debut for the Giants.
But his efforts, and those of import Duran Blue (34 points; eight assists), were lost as the team remained in last place.
"I found it very difficult to coach last (Saturday) night and probably made a couple of mistakes - in terms of just trying to get the right combinations," Taylor said.
"That was over the whole course of the game as we tried to find the right mix alongside someone (Majstrovich) who they'd never played with before and is a very good basketballer.
"All of a sudden, we've got a guy coming in and the others are playing out of position, which meant it was probably the hardest game of the season for me to coach."
Taylor lamented the side's poor start to the third quarter after the Wolves had gone into half-time trailing by seven points.
"They (Joondalup) go out and hit the first three baskets of the third quarter and are back in the game within a minute," he said.
"We've got to come out aggressively but for some reason, we go the other way, and it's quite frustrating as a coach.
"When a game is close like that, it comes down to defence - we seem to grind our points out, whereas other teams seem to get their points quite easily."
Seb Salinas led the Wolves' charge with 27 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. The main support was provided by Rhys Smyth (17 points; seven rebounds; three assists), with Joondalup emerging from the Goldfields road trip with an overall 9-8 win-loss record.
"We've got to come out aggressively but for some reason, we go the other way.""
Giants coach Marcus Taylor *
