LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Reigning Commonwealth 3×3 Wheelchair basketball champions Australia coach Brad Ness has revealed that the ability to put pressure on their opponents was what secured them a 90-67 comeback victory over Türkiye at the International Wheelchair Basketball Federation (IWBF) World Championships in Canada.
Turkiye lead the Australians in the first quarter winning by 21-13, but the Gliders eventually overtook them in the second quarter with a 33-32 scoreline.
In his post-game interview, Ness revealed that the team made unusual defensive errors that affected their performance in the first half.
“We were making really uncharasteristic errors, we had four transition passing errors. I think in the first quarter we missed three open layups.
“We weren’t able to create scoreboard pressure through our own errors. We allowed them to get six paint points in in the first quarter.
“In the second quarter when we got back in, we kept them to two points in the paint, so we were able to start making some shots and get our defensive pressure working and that’s what got us back in the game,” Ness revealed.
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The Gliders coach talked about Australia;s proud history of basketball while maintaining that the team would
“We love the sport and we’ve got a proud history of wheelchair basketball. If you look at Ethan, Jaylen, Tom O’neal, they’ve been playing since they were about six years, so we are just really lucky we’ve got a good program in Australia.
“Our first goal is to get through the quarter final, it’s been a few years since we’e gone through the quarters, we’ll see who we are playing after that and where destiny takes us,” he concluded.
