United vow to bounce back

Melbourne United looked like they were going to be taking a 2-0 Championship Series lead back to John Cain Arena, but after leading by 15 points during the third quarter, they came unstuck.

The JackJumpers mounted a monumental comeback over the final 15 minutes of play to emerge as five-point victors, and it was their staunch defence in the final stanza that led the way. Melbourne scored just 14 points in the final term, as it struggled to hit the scoreboard, and Tasmania took full advantage.

The opening 25 minutes of the game were played out in a similar fashion to last week’s series opener, however this time it was Tasmania who surged home, not Melbourne.

Club captain Chris Goulding says his side will learn from its mistakes and put the loss behind them ahead of Sunday’s Game 3.

“You can’t dwell too much,” Goulding said post-game. “The positive is we know the basketball that got us the 15-point lead is in us.

“We showed it the other night in Melbourne and we showed it again tonight. It’s about ‘how good is your bad?’. We had to really limit that run and we had to find a way to get some easy buckets and keep it ticking over, but we definitely need to look at the things we did poorly.

“Our mindset has been ‘how can we get better?’, and you do that by looking at your mistakes and learning from them, and trying to play more of that basketball that got us that big lead.

“We probably slowed down a bit and they were able to score at a better clip, which then we’re taking it out the net and running set plays.

“We probably didn’t have the pop or intensity to it, especially when there’s some foul trouble lurking around you have to teeter that line, and we probably didn’t do it well enough and lost a bit of our aggressiveness.”

Tasmania outrebounded Melbourne by nine total boards across the game, however it was Milton Doyle who pulled down a game-high 10 rebounds to help the JackJumpers control the glass.

Melbourne supported its surging run home in Game 1 with crucial baskets from offensive rebounds, and Tasmania did the same in its own victory in Game 2.

United head coach Dean Vickerman says while he’s proud of how his team started the game, it was those offensive rebounds and second-chance points that helped turn the tide.

“You take the punches early on, we knew they were going to come with everything and Crawford was on point and shot it well in that first part. We weathered it and I’m not sure if he scored after quarter-time,” Vickerman said.

“We locked in a lot better and kept him quiet. Our defensive scout was solid with the little adjustments we made. I thought we were pretty good at it. We’ll look back and it’ll be three or four offensive rebounds they score out of.

“They (the JackJumpers) won those ones today, and we won them the other night.”

There’s now a short turnaround for both teams ahead of Sunday’s Game 3 clash at John Cain Arena, and both Goulding and Vickerman say they’re happy to not have too much time between fixtures.

“I didn’t really enjoy the time between games, I would have liked to play. We’ve got bodies to take care of, I’m sure everyone got through that game well,” Vickerman said.

“We’ll review it tonight, we’ll talk about it tomorrow and hopefully have an absolutely sold out crowd at John Cain ... we look forward to it.”

“You don’t want to wait around. I’d play tomorrow if that was the way it was. Let’s get it going,” Goulding added.

Game 3 of the Championship Series between Melbourne and Tasmania will tip off at 5:30pm AEDT on Sunday evening, live on ESPN via Kayo.