Adelaide 36ers lose buzzer beater to Illawarra after costly misses from the free-throw line

THE free throw line is only 4.5m from the ring but even surrounded by 6000 of your own fans can still be a cold and lonely place.

Ramone Moore was 0/2 from the free throw line as Adelaide lost to Illawarra by one point on Sunday. Picture: Kelly Barnes (AAP).

THE free throw line is only 4.5m from the ring but even surrounded by 6000 of your own fans can still be a cold and lonely place.

Last night the Adelaide 36ers missed 14 free throw attempts and lost to Illawarra by one, 87-86.

Of course it took a game-winning fallaway lay-up by Jordair Jett over two opponents in the last second that had to be seen to be believed, but Adelaide did themselves no favours.

They were 18/32 from the stripe in what should be regulation points. Demitrius Conger (3/8), Daniel Johnson (1/4) and Ramone Moore (0/2) were the main offenders.

Johnson is 12/23 from the free throw line in the past three games. The thing is he can do it. He’s one of the best shooters let alone free-throw shooters in the team and was 10/10 against Illawarra here a fortnight ago. But when the captain has the jitters, it filters through the rest of the team.

“Usually when teams that are great free shooters miss, it’s a lack of confidence in the group,” coach Joey Wright said.

“When you step to that line it’s pretty lonely when you don’t feel like the whole group has your back, so it goes back to what we feel is the team hasn’t come together yet.”

Adelaide led by seven points with 1:45 on the clock and still found a way to lose.

And it just had to be Jett who played the villain perfectly. The Hawks’ US import who was booed by the crowd all night - even when he was on the bench and his face was on the big screen after his altercation with Harry Froling here two weeks ago - silenced the stadium once and for all.

The 36ers seem determined to learn their lessons the hard way this season for it was the second time in five games they’ve had their hearts broken on the buzzer at home after Cam Gliddon’s three-pointer for Brisbane last month. But at least this time Wright admitted there was nothing more his players could have done on that last play.

Jordan Jett makes the game-winning shot over Jacob Wiley and Daniel Johnson. Picture: Kelly Barnes (AAP).

“He (Jett) was determined to score that bucket, he made a heck of a move, he beat a guy and split two guys and finished on the opposite side of the ring, that was a heck of a move by Jordair. You don’t want to foul in that situation and I thought our guys played fairly good d’ (defence) on that, he made a tough move.”

But the damage was done early when Adelaide led by 14 after a blistering 20-6 start in the first quarter but lapsed and surrendered the lead by quarter-time.

“We talked about this - when we have leads we can’t get silly with them - we can’t then take a bad shot because what they don’t understand is that bad shot when you’re up 15 is the same bad shot when it’s 10 seconds to go,” Wright said.

Nathan Sobey top scored for Adelaide with 24 points and Jacob Wiley had 14 but the Sixers didn’t get enough out of Demitrius Conger who was promoted to starter but only played 16 minutes for three points. Adam Doyle provided a spark with nine points and took a charge off the bench and Anthony Drmic had nine including 4/4 from the free-throw line but that was about it.