Fatigue no excuse in loss to Breakers

The Perth Wildcats aren’t blaming fatigue, following their 78-83 loss to the New Zealand Breakers at RAC Arena on Sunday.

The Wildcats are coming off a five games in 11 games stretch, but their coach conceded that the Breakers were the better team on the day.

“It’s like an NBA schedule, we’re in four different states in 11 days, but we’re not using that, New Zealand’s been on the road for four months. They were in Tassie on Friday night, flew here yesterday and outworked us on the glass,” said Trevor Gleeson.

“I’m not going to sit here and cry and blame the referees or blame fatigue or anything like that. New Zealand played better than us, they executed better than us and they worked harder than us, and they got the win.”

After a back and-forth first half with 13 lead changes, the Wildcats opened up a 13-point lead in the third quarter before the Breakers turned the tide.

Thy had their chances to make it a one possession game in the final minutes, but it wasn’t to be.

“It’s about execution. We gave up an offensive rebound from the foul line, and down the stretch we were five down, we got a good steal, Norto got the intentional foul, made two foul shots, but we didn’t execute the last play as we hoped,” he said.

“That’s what it comes down to, when it’s a possession game, you try to get execution, if you don’t get execution, you don’t get a good shot and we turned the ball over at a crucial time.”

The rebound count was critical, with the Breakers holding Perth to 26 while getting 41 of their own.

John Mooney still managed eight of those and top-scored for his team with 22.

Todd Blanchfield contributed 19 points, while Bryce Cotton dropped nine dimes to go with 12 points.

The Wildcats will now look to recover before preparing for Friday’s battle with the Brisbane Bullets.

Perth Wildcats 78 (Mooney 22, Blanchfield 19, Cotton 12)

NZ Breakers 83 (Randolph 23, Webster 14, Abercrombie 140