Breakers coach Mody Maor says he has been forced to “fight fire with fire” and complain about the lack of foul calls his side received in their 93-90 defeat to the Perth Wildcats yesterday.
Moar criticised the performance of the officials in the post-game press conference at Perth’s RAC Stadium, saying he was breaking the habit of a season in doing so.
“I was planning coming into the press conference not to say anything about this but apparently this is the way it goes in the NBL,” Maor said. “An [opposition] coach goes to the press conference and complains about the referee and the whistle changes.
“I don’t like it, I’ve made it a habit during the whole season to not complain about anything, no matter the circumstances the Breakers met.
“For me it doesn’t make sense that a player like Derek Pardon shoots four free throws
“It doesn’t make sense to me that a player like Jarrell Brantley shoots zero free throws.
“It doesn’t make sense to me that the disparity in the free throw rate is 24-14.
“I have no problem with the fouls that were called against us. We play aggressive and physical and it’s part of my job as a coach to get us to defend without fouling. I have a big problem with us being perceived as a bully. And from this result, not receiving the foul calls that we deserved.”
Sitting alongside Pardon, who scored a match-high 28 points and pulled in 12 rebounds, Maor added: “This dude is under physical duress consistently".
“He’s a strong man with broad shoulders and he will never complain but he deserves these foul calls, he’s putting in the work. It just makes no sense to me and I hope that the referees do a better job with this in the future.”
Asked about the officials, Pardon replied: “There’s nothing we can do about it, we’re just on the court playing.”
Maor stressed the officials were not the reason the Breakers, third in the NBL and with games to come against Melbourne United in Christchurch tomorrow night and the Cairn Taipans at Auckland’s Spark Arena on Sunday, lost.
"It turned on the glass and we gave up 15 offensive rebounds and they scored 23 points from those," he said. "This is where we lost this ball game.
"It's definitely not a good showing for us but this has been a constant thing for Perth for the last six or seven games, they've been averaging around 15 offensive rebounds a game. We pride ourselves in being a better defensive-rebounding team than this.
"We started the season off rebounding poorly and we improved a lot, and this was a very bad game from us in this regard.”
Former Breakers, brothers Corey and Tai Webster, scored 19 and 11 points respectively for the Wildcats.
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