Kalgoorlie Miner's Nick Rynne reports on the Giants defeat at the hands of the Cougars in Kalgoorlie on the weekend.

The best and worst of the Goldfields Giants were on display on Saturday night as they succumbed to the silky Cockburn Cougars by nine points in the latest round of State Basketball League action.

The Giants eventually lost to the Cougars by nine points, 101-92, but things may have been different had they hit their shots in the last quarter.

After going into the last quarter eight points down, the Giants launched a strong offensive push to hit the lead by one point, but then failed to hit shots when the game was on the line.

Mark Heron was on fire for the Giants, hitting 26 points and chalking up eight assists, but it did little to quell the influence of Cockburn's Mark Jones, who took the game on in the second half, scoring 27 points to lead the visitors to victory.

The Cougars went into the game without their international player Martin Cattalini and the Giants were once again missing the influence of captain Shamus Ballantyne, whose 250th game was put on hold for the third successive round.

After two easy wins, the Giants were shocked into life in the first term when Cockburn matched then point for point.

Cockburn's defensive pattern was tight, but Heron was able to negotiate it well and score early points.

Every foul seemed to go against the Giants on the night and the Cougars began to skip away, with big efforts from Ryan Hulme keeping the Giants in the game.

Cockburn sank almost every shot in the second term as the Giants' defence started to leak points badly.

The Cougars soon learned why you don't make Russell Hurst angry when fouls evaded him and he put on six points in the space of two minutes.

Alonzo Hird fired up late in the first half, blocking a shot at one end, then following it up with a quality dunk at the other, but ultimately the class of Douglas McLaughlin-Williams with 17 first-half points steered the Cougars to a seven point lead at half time.

Big individual efforts were keeping the Giants in touch, but they failed to gel offensively in the second half as Cockburn tightened their defence.

The Giants were able to bring the deficit back to two points, but the fouls continued to go against them and help Cockburn stretch it out again to eight points at three-quarter time.

The last term began with a huge push from the home team.

The packed stadium was right behind the Giants as Heron and Michael Haney combined well to steer the home side back into contention. Haney's work in the paint was inspirational and saw the Giants take the lead for the first time in the game.

The game started to dissolve into a scrappy affair and Cockburn did not miss from the foul line, keeping the Giants at bay.

A two-minute period of dominance took the game out of the Giants' hands, with Cockburn guard Mark Jones taking the game on and finishing from the foul line, leading the Cougars to a nine-point victory.

Giants coach Stephen Charlton said the leaky defence in the first half meant the team had to work too hard to regain the lead.

"We gave up 62 points in the first half," Charlton said.

"You can't let a good team get out on you by that amount."

He said the Giants' offence was still a concern.

"We're still not smooth, there's still a lot of kinks," he said.

"It seems like when everything doesn't work perfectly, we don't know what to do."

Charlton said hopefully the team would use next weekend's game against the East Coast Eagles to assert their position in the top three.

"It's a chance to get one back," he said.

"We have to start beating teams who are in the running for the playoffs."

Article by Nick Rynne (Kalgoorlie Miner)