Geraldton Buccaneers focus on late-game comeback amid confusion in Rockingham loss

Despite a late foul costing them the game, the Geraldton Buccaneers are taking the positives out of their one-point loss to the Rockingham Flames on Saturday.

With the game tied and less than two seconds left to play, a very contentious technical foul on Josh Braun gave the Flames a free throw that let them take the 94-93 win.

There was a lot of confusion on the court and it took minutes for the referees to come to a conclusion about the foul.

Buccs coach Dayle Joseph said there was not clarity on who the foul was on during the moment.

“I probably didn’t realise who the referee had called the foul on until I got home that night,” he said.

“I actually thought the foul was on Johny (Narkle) . . . it wasn’t until I looked at the replay and my family said ‘no it was on Josh Braun’.”

A normally calm Joseph was animated on the sidelines and visibly frustrated after the Flames were given a chance to take the win on a holding call that came down to a bit of a headscratcher in the match’s dying seconds.

“All I heard was just a holding foul, then there was a thing on if the balled had been passed or not, whether it became a technical foul,” Joseph said.

“That sort of holding was on pretty much the whole game. We could have argued the fact that Josh Braun and Johny was being held on to coming off screens.

“And we’re probably doing the same thing to (Devondrick) Walker earlier on as well, so it’s just a bit of a funny time for him to call it.”

Despite the home loss, which ended the Buccs’ 11-game winning streak, they still sit on top of the ladder and need just one more win to claim the NBL1 West minor premiership.

Joseph said there were a lot of positives to take from the loss.

“If we looked at the numbers, we could probably say we did a lot of good things in comparison to some of our other games,” he said.

“We have a few boxes that we tick during games to put us in position to win, and we ticked quite a few of those boxes.”

If the foul had not been called, it could have set up for one of the Buccaneers’ best comebacks this season.

Down by nine points with less than three minutes left to play, they erased the deficit to be tied, with seconds remaining.

“I was just really proud of the way we came back,” Joseph said.

“A couple minutes to go and we decided that we’re going to have a crack at this.

“Guys were pretty keen to get a win still. It was great we got back to a point where we levelled scores, and we probably did enough to put ourselves in front.”

Now the side face the Mandurah Magic at home this week, getting another chance to claim the minor premiership.

Joseph was named the NBL1 West coach of the month last week following the side’s 11-game run.

He said the award came down to the players.

“That’s a team award as far as I’m concerned … You don’t get those awards if your players aren’t contributing,” he said.