Sydney Kings coach Chase Buford accuses NZ Breakers of roughhouse play, influencing refs

Sydney Kings coach Chase Buford has lit the fuse for Wednesday’s NBL championship decider at Qudos Bank Arena by accusing the Breakers – for the second time this season – of being too physical, the referees of favouring the Kiwi club and asserting owner Matt Walsh influenced the officials via social media.

The American coach, and son of San Antonio Spurs chief executive RC Buford, was not a happy camper after the New Zealand Breakers’ 80-70 Sunday night victory in front of a record sellout crowd of 9728 at Spark Arena that levelled the championship series at 2-2.

The deciding fifth game is at Sydney’s home super stadium on Wednesday night (9.30pm NZT).

Buford was petulant throughout the post-game press conference on Sunday night, and appeared especially irked by questions from Stuff’s basketball writer. When asked to clarify what he felt the Breakers “got away with”, as he had asserted earlier, he said: “There was no freedom of movement. At one point it was 11-2 the foul count in the second half … it was clear … do you need me to help you?”

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Then after taking several further digs at the Kiwi club’s play, Stuff asked him if physicality was not part of the game of basketball, or if he felt the Breakers had gone beyond that. At that, he rose and stormed out of the press conference.

For the record the Breakers had 17 fouls called against them for the game, and Sydney 20. The count was level at 10-10 at halftime. The Kiwi club did have a decided edge in free-throws, with 26 attempts, compared to the Kings’ 14.

“I’m proud of the guys. It’s always tough to go out there and compete against eight, but they gave us a fightback in the second half and gave us a chance to win,” he said. “Credit to New Zealand. They made some big shots down the stretch to keep us at arm’s length.”

Asked if it was difficult to know how the game would be officiated, Buford said: “After Matt Walsh’s tweet I knew exactly how tonight was going to be called, and it was called exactly as I thought it would.

“When we had some freedom of movement to play, where our guys were able to get in the paint, we shared it some, we had 13 assists in the second half and they played hard despite everything going against them.”

Walsh had tweeted during game three in Sydney: “Maybe they’ll just foul our entire team out.” That was in reference to a heavy foul count against the Kiwi club that saw star forward Jarrell Brantley foul out early in the final term, and three other players finish the game on four fouls.

Buford was asked on Sunday if he noticed changes from the Breakers from game three (won 91-68 by the Kings in Sydney on Friday night)to this one.

“They were allowed to get away with stuff they weren’t allowed to in the first two games,” he said.

How would he adjust for Wednesday?

“We will do the same s..t.”

Buford was asked how he addressed his team about his concerns.

“We knew we were going to get hosed,” he said. “We just said we were going to weather the storm and stick together. I don’t think we did a great job of that. We’ve got to handle it better.

“We addressed it. We’ve just got to be tough and play through it and weather the storm. It was a big storm in the second half.”

This is the second time this season Buford has accused the Breakers of roughhouse play. In December, after an 88-81 victory at Spark Arena he said: “It felt like we were playing the All Blacks out there tonight, [with] the physicality.”

Breakers coach Mody Maor was rapt with the performance of his team, facing elimination, and was in no mood to entertain any suggestions his team was receiving any favourable treatment.

“I’ve heard what happened. This happened here in the beginning of the season too,” he said. “Honestly, it doesn’t even bother me, the reaction. Everybody is doing the best that they can. I sat here after the third game in the series and I didn’t say one peep about the referees because they are doing the best that they can, and all the other noise, man, it belongs somewhere else. So don’t ask me about this.

“I for sure didn’t get any help from anybody to win this game.”

Maor, though, was happy to identify what got his team up to a magnificent result in front of the biggest crowd to have watched a hoops game in New Zealand.

”We competed every second we were on the floor. Sydney is an incredible team and if you lose focus for just a little bit they go on a run. We stayed with it. We kept competing even when shots didn’t fall, even when the whistle didn’t go, even when we made mistakes we kept competing.

“This has been the thing we’ve been the proudest of all year – that these guys step on the floor and give it everything they got all the time. That’s all I ask for.”