THE Mandurah Magic men’s team squander a chance to move into the top four after losing to the Goldfields Giants on Saturday.
The Magic, with nine wins and five losses, showed enough class to easily account for the eighth-placed Lakeside 117-101 on Friday night but were blown away by the 11th-placed Goldfields Giants the following night 92-120.
In a high-scoring first term the Magic were able to open up a 10-point lead against Lakeside (5-9) which remained for the majority of the game.
Paul Hafford and Rhett Della led the way for the Magic with 26 points each while Ben Smith was handy with 19 points and 13 rebounds.
The Giants were coming off three straight wins, their only wins for the season, and showed they are a far better team than their lowly ladder position suggests against Mandurah. The Magic were in the game after the first term with scores level but found themselves eight points down at halftime, which grew to 19 at the end of the third.
After sinking a three-pointer to begin the forth to cut the deficit to 16 the Magic went on to miss their next nine attempts with the margin blowing out to 24.
The Mandurah side’s shooting percentage was just 21.4 in the last period and 42.9 per cent for the game.
Smith was the top scorer for the Magic with 25. Mandurah head coach Jason Kyle said the high of winning on Friday was gone after losing on Saturday.
“We really targeted Friday as a important game to win,” he said. “We played some really good basketball and we saw it as a really important win.”
Kyle said he didn’t take Goldfields lightly heading into Saturday’s game as they had won their previous three games but was surprised by the result. “I thought they would be a challenge but I never could have predicted the outcome [and to lose by so much],” he said.
“They scored really well and we weren’t able to stop them defensively. “I thought I first half wasn’t too bad but we shot really poorly in the second half.”
Kyle said the team would face one of the competition’s biggest challenge when they head to Eaton to face the South West Slammers on Friday.
The Slammers sit in second place with 12 wins and two losses but suffered a shock loss to the 10th-placed Perth Redbacks last weekend 109-118.
“It’s going to be a really tough encounter,” Kyle said. “Both teams are really going to want to win after coming off loses.”
The game will be at 8.30 tomorrow at the Eaton Recreation Centre.