GOLDFIELDS Giants coach Stephen Charlton says his players have exceeded even his wildest expectations after qualifying for a fourth straight semi-finals series during his tenure.

Since Charlton joined the State Basketball League franchise for the 2006 season, the Giants have never finished lower than second in those three completed seasons.

But after the Giants moved into the best-of-three semi-finals against Perry Lakes, who defeated Wanneroo 112-95 on Saturday to clinch their quarter-finals series 2-0, Charlton heaped all the praise on his players.

“I think it’s more of a sign of where the team is at,” Charlton said.

“The club under Geoff Hobba made a grand final with these guys two years before I came along. It’s more a maturity within the group.

“When I got here the guys were 23, 24 and now they’re more mature around 26 and 27 and I think that natural graduation helps a lot.”

On Saturday’s comeback victory against Kalamunda, Charlton has told his players to put a disastrous first half behind them.

The Giants were looking down the barrel of a 21-point deficit in the second period before rallying for one of their best wins of the season.

“The first half we were pretty horrible for most of it,” Charlton said.

“We turned about 11 points down at the half and that was only because of the last three minutes when we got something going. We were a bit off and they were phenomenal, they shot the ball at 59 per cent in the first half, which is ridiculous.

“So to get out of that with a 21-point turnaround in the second half, we’re pretty happy with that.

“We’ll just try to forget about the first half and remember the second.”

Charlton said his half-time message was simple.

“We turned at half-time with some momentum, so we said ‘let’s keep that going’,” he said. “We spoke about a few things, mainly cleaning up our skills at both ends of the floor. I thought defensively in the first half we were on the back foot a lot and letting them dictate to us.

“We needed to go back to the game plan and our structures. At that stage, we were probably the underdog.”

The team lifted across the board, but captain Shamus Ballantyne was instrumental.

“Shamus was a little upset at the way things were going and he fired up a bit,” Charlton said.

“Everybody knows when Shamus starts playing with that drive and that real purpose about the game that one, it makes it a hell of a lot tougher and two, everyone else jumps on board.”

The Giants can now almost see the finishing line in the quest for a hat-trick of SBL titles.

“We’re confident if we turn up and play our best we’re as good as anybody in the league,” Charlton said.

“We’ll get to training and do some work. Obviously after tonight we’ve got a few things to improve.”

Article by Jarrod Lucas (Kalgoorlie Miner)
Photo by Travis Anderson - Andmedia/Sports Vision © 2009.