Match Report v Sydney (Round 3)

The Tasmania JackJumpers have fallen to a 71-83 loss against the Sydney Kings in enemy territory on Wednesday night. 

The JackJumpers led by nine leading into the final quarter, but scored just eight points to the Kings' 29 down the stretch. 

For the most part, Tasmania was in control. But their recent trend of falling away in the final quarter continued and the new kids on the block will need to learn how to put four quarters together.

While they were impressive for three quarters, the visitors could only hit one bucket from 12 attempts in the final term.

Captain Clint Steindl's radar was on with 15 points, point guard Josh Magette had 13 points and four assists, while Sam McDaniel had 11 points and four boards.

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth was visibly disappointed with the loss and admitted their offence was not where it needed to be.

"We didn't make any shots (in the final quarter) ... it is obviously frustrating, we played very well there for three quarters," he said

"I take complete responsibility for having our offence behind our defence, but for three quarters we played very well - what I envisaged this group to be.

"It got away from us in the fourth quarter and there are lessons to be learned there. There are positives and we can build on those, get back to Tassie and get back to work."

It was a shaky start for both teams. The JackJumpers opened the scoring but would take another six minutes to find their second basket. Sydney capitalised with an 8-0 run, but they were still lacking direction without Adams and struggled to have any cohesion in offence.

The baskets began to flow for the visitors and late in the quarter, they took a shock lead. A Mikyle McIntosh three-point play in the final minute meant they would take that lead into quarter-time, pacing the battling Kings 20-17.

Kings coach Chase Buford didn't mince his words, barking at his troops that their offence "sucked" and they were surrendering far too many second-chance points to their opposition. A Steindl triple didn't help their cause as the buckets continued to rim out for Sydney.

The Kings began to find their groove, though, left the tempo and take the game by the scruff of the neck and a Martin triple pushed them back in front midway through the second quarter. This time it was JackJumpers coach Scott Roth to launch an X-rated tirade and threaten to bench players not putting in.

Back-to-back triples from Jack McVeigh gave Tasmania some breathing room before a Will Magnay bank shot pushed their lead out to six. 

It rattled the Kings. They lost their mojo, kept (unsuccessfully) trying to blaze their way out of trouble and ultimately surrendered a 10-0 run. Rookie Biwali Bayles finally splashed a triple for the Kings, but they went into halftime in a 48-39 hole.

The lead ballooned out to 13 early in the third quarter before Bayles stopped the rot with a triple and Martin thundered home a statement dunk to bring the Kings back to within eight points. However, it was the visitors who went into the final term with a 63-54 advantage.

They couldn't hold on though in the last. 

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 3

SYDNEY KINGS 83 (Martin 24, Bayles 12, Cooks 12)

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 71 (Steindl 15, Magette 13, Mcintosh 11)

BOX SCORE