PORT Macquarie Dolphins just can't seem to win the close games after another heartbreaking three-point loss on Sunday.
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With Josh Kelly leading the way the Dolphins surged home in the final quarter only to fall 73-70 to Hornsby.
Unfortunately coach Mark Champion will lose Kelly to the Gold Coast where he has accepted an apprenticeship.
It now makes it eight matches this season where they have lost by a single-figure margin and Champion said the close losses had started to chip away at his teams confidence.
“Now the slump is the problem and we’ve got to find a way out of it because nobody has had fun over the last month.
“And from my experiences, a big part of being successful is having fun and you want to be playing as a team when things get tough.”
Instead of working as a team, Champion said individuals were “trying to do it all themselves” and everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
Now the slump is the problem and we’ve got to find a way out of it because nobody has had fun over the last month.
- Port Macquarie Dolphins coach Mark Champion
“I wouldn’t say they’re expecting to lose, but they’re feeling the pressure of those close losses earlier in the year," he said.
Josh Smith suffered a broken wrist and Lance Guild and Josh Minihan were also injured, leaving Champion with the bare five players to complete the match.
“In the NBA they talk about clutch and that’s when you’re within five points with five minutes to play,” he said.
“We’ve easily had eight games where we’ve been within 10 points this year, but we have under-performed this year, definitely.”
A poor free-throw record of about 30 per cent cost the Dolphins any chance of victory down the stretch.
“We had a chance to tie it up in the final quarter, but it felt to me like they’ve had so many close losses they’ve now lost their mojo,” Champion said.
After back-to-back wins on the road in Sydney earlier in the year, Champion felt his side fell into the trap of not working as hard.
“We’re going through some pain this year and we just need to stick at it."
- Mark Champion
So far, they have been unable to climb out of their current hole.
“You could say that,” he said.
“Since those two wins in Sydney we have only performed to our potential once or twice.
“We came back from those wins, played at home against Manly, felt we were better than them, lost and then everything snowballed from there.”
He did, however stop short of saying the Dolphins now expected to lose.
“The confidence levels have dropped so we’re not putting in the right amount of work and we haven’t learnt as a team how to win,” he said.
“We’re going through some pain this year and we just need to stick at it.
“We’ve tripled our wins from last year so we are heading in the right direction.”
Champion felt they would emerge from the current tough patch as a better team in the long run.
“I really believe you learn more this way and while it isn’t fun for anyone at the moment, if this season can help the future, then it will all be worth it in the end.
“We’re going in the right direction.”