Cavaliers suffer a lacklustre loss

By Justin Robertson
A LACKLUSTRE four quarter performance has ended any finals hopes the Cranbourne Cavaliers had planned for this year, losing their round 10 clash to Maccabi by 16 points at Bialik Stadium on Saturday night.
The Cavs were behind all game but got within three points early in the final quarter, scoring the first four points of the term, but were unable to reel in Maccabi who steadied and ran away with a comfortable 68-52 win.
Cavs coach Cory Smith was dejected after the loss especially since the team had previously beaten Maccabi earlier in the season.
“We’re very disappointed,” said Smith. “We beat them by 20 points earlier in the year and it was our shooting that let us down.”
Smith said it wasn’t just their inefficient field goal shooting that cost the Cavs, it was also where they were shooting the ball from.
“We seemed to take too many jump shots, and weren’t trying to get the ball inside the key and attack the basket,” said Smith.
“Maybe it was their defence they were playing that was making us take those shots.”
The Cavs only scored 20 points inside the key and had a shooting percentage of 28.2, compared to Maccabi’s 34 points in the key with 42.2 per cent accuracy.
The game was still within reach for the Cavs at three quarter time (48-41) and Smith said the players had the belief they could win, but Maccabi’s experience overpowered them when it mattered most.
“They hit some crucial shots which swung the momentum their way, including a couple of three point plays which got the margin back out to 10 points pretty quickly,” said Smith.
“And that killed off our momentum.”
Justin McMillin was the pick of the shooters with 13 points and seven rebounds and Jake Sparshot (11,2) chipped in which drew praise from coach Smith.
“Jake had another good game, that’s two in a row for him,” he said.
“He’s one of the young guys that seems to improve each week and always gives us pretty good energy off the bench, he’s a pretty good defender as well.
The Cavs have now lost four in a row and coach Cory Smith has now ruled out playing finals for this season.
“Our percentage is pretty poor, so not looking to make finals now,” said Smith.
“I think we’d have to win 80 per cent of our games for the year which will be pretty tough.”
Looking ahead, Smith admitted the Cavs are still a work in progress.
“It’s our first year playing, so everyone is still learning to play together.
“We’ll get some of the young guys on the bench to play a bit more and get them exposed to the game and figure how we are going to approach the coming games, and start looking toward preseason and next year.”
The Cavs will play third-paced Camberwell and first-placed Mildura over the next two weeks.