Goorjian’s warning after Kings’ 26-point collapse

Brian Goorjian knew a third-quarter surge was coming. Stopping it proved a tougher task for the Kings.

Up 21 at the break after leading by as many as 26, Sydney came out flat in the third quarter and let the Cairns Taipans storm back, and Goorjian knows they can’t afford a repeat if they want to hold on to top spot on Sunday.

Sydney arrived in Cairns on Friday night riding a three-game winning streak, the latest a home win over the South East Melbourne Phoenix, and the first half went entirely to script.

The Kings ran off 16 straight points either side of quarter-time and pushed the lead to 26 in the second term, shooting 56 per cent from the field and 6/14 from deep. Cairns managed just 32 points on 26 per cent shooting, including 6/23 from three.

Goorjian’s half-time message was simple: keep the pressure on and don’t let the Taipans find their shooting eye.

Instead, Cairns won the second half 52-29, knocking down 10/19 from long range while the Kings went cold at 3/22, two of those coming late from Torrey Craig.

For Goorjian, it came down to focus. His side walked out of the rooms without the same intent and was made to pay.

“Full credit to Cairns but for us, it’s quite obvious and we were really, really good at the start of the game defensively, really lively, and got a lot of stuff off momentum and pace,” Goorjian said.

“When we went in at half-time, we talked about how they’re going to shoot a lot of threes, they’re going to spread the court and they’re going to come the first five minutes of the quarter, and we were a step off everything.

“Forget the offensive side of the ball, but defensively, the first four possessions were threes, there were possessions where there were loose balls and we had the ball, and they took it from us, kicked it out, hit a three or got an offensive rebound for a kick out three.

“So the game changed and I felt like we had control of how the game was going to be played, and we lost our way in the third.

“Then on that aspect, it carried over to the offence when we weren’t getting stops and we weren’t putting energy there. We started bouncing the ball a lot and taking bad shots.”

The Kings now head home to host the New Zealand Breakers on Sunday needing a response to finish the round on top. Goorjian took some heart from the late fightback, but was clear on what can’t happen again.

“I thought on our side of it, it looked like they would run away with it there when they went up five or six after we’ve been up 25, but we came back and got our shots with the guys that we wanted to shoot the ball at the end of the game,” Goorjian said.

“We got to the free-throw line and I think we were 0/8 from the three outside of Torrey late in that game, but we gave ourselves a chance to win from a really bad position with five minutes to go.

“There wasn’t a lot to say, it was just moving bodies trying to find a combination that worked and I moved to a different lineup with five minutes to go when we were five down.

“We got back and took the lead so I thought the adjustments were fine, but it’s just that we’ve got a game on Sunday and we can’t play like we played in the second half again.”

Sydney now return home to host New Zealand from 3pm AEDT on Sunday, live on ESPN.