DeAndre Liggins urges Al Ahli Jeddah to keep chin up despite falling to 0-3 hole

JEDDAH (Saudi Arabia) - DeAndre Liggins could only concede after Al-Ahli Jeddah became students of Kuwait Club in a chemistry lesson in their FIBA WASL Season 2 clash, Monday night.

"We just can't put our heads down and be mad about losing."

The former NBA veteran said that the reigning Gulf League champions' familiarity with one another proved to be the difference especially in the endgame, which the Saudi Arabian side couldn't match as they eventually succumbed to a 110-92 defeat -- their third in as many outings.

"We actually played well but their chemistry, them playing together for a long period of time kinda took over," he offered in the postgame presser at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Sports Hall.

Liggins himself led Al-Ahli with 30 points, 19 of which he produced in the first half alone that saw the home team go toe-to-toe with the visitors. They even held a 21-16 lead in the opening quarter before entering the halftime intermission holding a narrow 44-43 edge.

The crew led by a field goal early in the third canto but it proved to be their last taste of the lead as Hamad Hasan sparked the Kuwait Club rally that swung momentum in their favor.

Al-Ahli would never recover since and Liggins opined that it's their maladjustment defensively that spelled doom for them, lamenting how they stuck with zone the rest of the night.

"They were just breaking us down, in our zone," said the 35-year-old, who played for a full 40 minutes. "Our coverage was kinda bad from time to time. In the first half we were great. But I just think we could've mixed it up, went zone, then went man-to-man to give them a different look."

"But we stayed in the zone for the whole period of the game and they did a great job of moving the ball, finding players," he added as their lapses enabled Moh Hasan to shoot eight threes on the way to 36 points to lead the visitors, which shot 15-of-30 from deep as a unit.

Making the result all the more tougher to swallow is that it sent Al-Ahli to a 0-3 hole in Group A of the Gulf League, just one of two teams in the sub-zone league that's yet to win a game.

It sure is a tough predicament for any team to be, since they will have to, preferably, win all their remaining games in the Group Phase to stay in playoff contention.

Al-Ahli still has three more matches coming up. They'll face Al Rayyan in Qatar on January 9 before taking on Muharraq at home on the 30th, then Kuwait Club again on February 12 on the road.

As difficult as it is, though, Liggins refuses to bow his head, believing that they can still turn things around this season as long as they put in the work during practice.

"We gotta stay composed. Keep our confidence, 'cause it's easy to get down going 0-and-3. But we have to start it in practice. That's the main thing with me," he said,

"Start it in practice, practicing good habits. We have to start it in practice, We just can't put our heads down and be mad about losing ... at 0-3, we just gotta keep battling and keep fighting."

FIBA