THE Perth Redbacks have been outstanding in 2014 with two strong imports, two emerging leaders and exciting young talent to be in a position to qualify for the SBL grand final, but coach Nik Lackovic's firm focus is on Friday night's Game 2 against the East Perth Eagles.

While the Redbacks still made the men's SBL playoffs in 2013 before losing in the quarter finals to the eventual champion Lakeside Lightning, Lackovic has been able to help build up a program from the D-League up that has Perth two games away from a grand final appearance.

The Redbacks finished the regular season on fire winning their last six matches to end up in third position in the standings and then defeating the Mandurah Magic in two games in the quarter finals to set up a semi-final series with the East Perth Eagles.

The Eagles were able to win Game 1 last Saturday night at Morley Sport and Recreation Centre in a contest that now sets up a tantalising upcoming weekend with Game 2 at the WA Basketball Centre, and if the Redbacks win that then Game 3 will be at the same venue.

Regardless of the result this weekend, Lackovic has done an outstanding job both developing talent individually and pulling together a team that has played outstanding basketball.

Stan Okoye has starred all season coming from Virginia Military Institute and has now earned himself a lucrative two-year Serie A contract in Italy while Lee Roberts has arrived in the second half of the season to provide an outstanding one-two import punch.

Joel Wagner and Jarrad Prior are as proud Redbacks products as anyone and now have turned themselves into strong, experienced leaders in the SBL while Dennis Tawhiti has emerged so much that he's in the mix for an NBL contract and Marshall Nelson is soon to head off for college.

Lackovic is proud of the culture he has been able to develop with the Redbacks and to now see them in such good form at the business end of the season, and his and his players' focus is on winning Game 2 on Friday night over the Eagles to force the decider 24 hours later.

"Under my tutelage and since I've been coach of this program, I educate my guys on playing the game the right way. No player has ever been reported or up on any charges, and I have educated my guys to never react to anything that happens on the floor," Lackovic said.

"We focus on what we can control and do well. Stan has enabled us to do that and so has Lee, and we have two tremendous young leaders in Joel and Jarrod. You throw into the mix an exciting young talent like Marshall Nelson and Dennis Tawhiti, and these guys are excited about getting the opportunity to play in a grand final.

"In our 50th year, for us to make a grand final is what we've worked hard for this year. We made a promise to each other at the start of the year and we made a promise to ourselves in Geraldton, what we were going to do after we started this thing rolling and showed what we were capable of doing.

"Our focus is on making sure that we have one game that we need to close out and win on Friday night, and that's all we are focusing on. We are focused on doing all the things that we have done well over the last eight to 10 weeks."

Lackovic also is making sure none of his or his players attention is taken up by comments made by East Perth coach Adam Forde that he feels are designed to try and both distract the Redbacks, and motivate his Eagles team.

"Credit to East Perth for winning Game 1 in their place and now the series comes back to BWA that we still believe is our home court," he said.

"My players are not distracted, we are not interested and we are not going to pay any attention to the mind games that Forde is trying to create to motivate his team, that's of no interest to what we want to do.

"All we are focusing on and what we have done really well over the last eight or 10 weeks is playing great team defence, working hard together on both ends of the floor and the results take care of themselves as long as we execute the way we know how to."

Lackovic simply feels that as long as the Redbacks play the way he asks them to, and the way they have the second half of the season, that there is no reason they can't end up in the grand final of 2014 to face either the Geraldton Buccaneers or Lakeside Lightning.

"We have earned the right to be in this position and we've lost only one game out of our last 11," he said.

"We won eight straight to finish the season, we went through the playoffs in the first round and we had an opportunity where East Perth are going to give us a lot of open shots based on them playing a two-three zone for 48 minutes. We need to make sure that we take the shots we want to take, not the ones they want us to take. We need to play a little bit smarter."

Forde has made comments regarding both an incident involving Joe-Alan Tupaea and Jarrad Jackson that didn’t end up going to the tribunal following last week's game and about the Redbacks apparently stopping the Eagles training at the WA Basketball Centre this week.

Lackovic was quick to point out that he did feel Tupaea deserved to be cited and to refute claims that they tried to stop East Perth hitting the floor at the WABC.

"Our focus has been on preparing for what we can control on the court. The distractions that Adam is trying to create to motivate his team is completely up to him on how he wants to do that. But I can categorically say that at no stage what Adam is quoted as saying is true," Lackovic said.

"We never tried to do anything like that and my job as coach of this team is to protect my players and the rest is up to the league.

"When we've got a player who three weeks ago got rubbed out for three weeks and is involved in an incident off the ball after the whistle, our job as a club is to protect our players to make sure they are put in a position where they can play and compete the right way. We control playing basketball and nothing else."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Marg Prior