NBL: Melbourne United one win away from grand final appearance

Melbourne United head to New Zealand on the verge of securing a maiden grand final appearance.

Melbourne United’s Casper Ware drives to the basket against New Zealand Breakers at Hisense Arena on Saturday. Picture: AAP

Melbourne United head to New Zealand on the verge of securing a maiden grand final appearance after opening their semi-final series with a confidence-building win.

Casper Ware guided United to their first playoff victory with 21 of his game-high 33 points coming in the second half of Saturday’s 88-77 win over New Zealand at Hisense Arena.

“It means a lot to give them their first time in history type of thing ... but it doesn’t mean that much,” Ware said after steering Melbourne to a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.

“It’s just one game for us, we have got a bigger goal than winning one finals game.”

The former NBA guard admitted to being “super aggressive” against the Breakers but appeared genuinely surprised after learning he had taken a season-high 29 shot attempts.

“When you are in the flow of the game, you really aren’t counting anything — you’re just trying to take what the defence gives you,” Ware said.

With New Zealand likely to make defensive adjustments for today’s game two in Auckland, Ware remains confident his teammates will rise to the challenge when required.

“I was just my night ... Monday night might be somebody else’s night,” Ware said.

Melbourne produced the fast start coach Dean Vickerman was looking for but after Shea Ili powered the Breakers to a first-quarter lead, United lifted defensively to keep their opponents under 20 points per quarter for the rest of the match.

“We wanted to hold them under 80 points — that was our goal,” Vickerman said. “All year we have been holding teams to 82 (points per game) but we need to step it up another level and squash that a little bit more.”

Meanwhile, Perth coach Trevor Gleeson accused his side of not playing like men after the Wildcats’ 109-74 humiliation by Adelaide in game one of their semi-final series.

Trailing by six points on Saturday night after the opening half, the two-time reigning champions were blown away 59-30 after the main break in their heaviest finals defeat since 1989. Perth were belted then by 55 points by the now-defunct North Melbourne Giants.

“It doesn’t matter who you play, where you play, you be a man and play hard,” Gleeson fumed.

“I don’t think we played hard for 40 minutes — we played hard for 20 minutes.

“We weren’t playing Wildcats basketball. I don’t think we were proud of our effort tonight.”

Perth captain Damian Martin felt his side were embarrassed in terms of effort and had to show more pride in game two on Friday at Perth Arena.

“Disappointed ... embarrassed,” Martin said.

“They had guys almost running into each other. That’s how desperate they were to get out in the open court and run.

“The reality is they didn’t do anything outside their skill set — they were just hungrier and (more) desperate, particularly in that second half.

“They embarrassed us and now we’ve got six days to go back and say that’s not going to happen again on our home court.”

AAP