Tough lessons learned as United advance

What stuck with Dean Vickerman after last season's Melbourne United heartbreak was not executing how they'd like in the clutch. They continue doing it perfectly in NBL25 and it's key to them reaching NBL Championship Series.

Having lost last year's series in the most heartbreaking of fashions a year ago, when the Tasmania JackJumpers took the big moments, Vickerman was relieved and delighted that in Game 3 on Tuesday night, his team stood up.

That perfectly executed final possession of Rob Loe taking the inbounds pass, finding Matthew Dellavedova and for him to find Chris Goulding under the basket to get fouled and secure the 113-112 win over the Perth Wildcats was just what Vickerman wanted to see.

"We talked about moments and we didn’t win those over in Perth, but tonight CG's block at the rim with Henny (Ben Henshall) and obviously that last play," Vickerman said.

"Delly has been so elite making the right decisions and we'll look back at that when we get a chance as a team and look at the moments that we actually won."

Melbourne was heartbreakingly close to winning the NBL24 championship, but Vickerman and his United team were left kicking themselves over their execution late in several games against the JackJumpers.

The first time it came to the fore in NBL25 was when they played the Sydney Kings on January 9, having lost five of their past six games.

It came down to the last possession with Dellavedova finding Jack White for the game winning finish, after Goulding set the perfect screen.

Four days later and again it was Dellavedova making the pass, this time to Goulding after White's screen got him open. He made his 10th three-pointer of the game to sink the New Zealand Breakers.

Then with scores tied at 112-112 with 2.9 seconds left on Tuesday night of Game 3 against the Wildcats, Dellavedova found Goulding who made the first foul shot to give him 30 points for the night and a famous victory.

For Vickerman, it brought a smile to his face, firstly because it showed they improved on and learned from last year, but also just because his players executed under the most pressure perfectly.

"All year we've talked about the things we needed to do better and one of those was execution down the stretch of games," Vickerman said.

"You look back at the Sydney game, the New Zealand game and this game, and we've executed plays to win in the last 30 seconds. It's a little tick right now to say we've improved in that area.

"It was just a wrinkle on a play that we've used before and there was obviously a factor of the time on the clock to be able to do it.

"The boys executed perfectly and the foul probably took a little bit more time off the clock too, which was nice for us.

"Had he just laid it in they might have had the opportunity to call a timeout and go the other way so to have the opportunity to win the game like that was pretty special."

It has been an emotional couple of weeks for Vickerman, following the passing of former Breakers championship winning guard and head coach Kevin Braswell.

Braswell came up huge in a semi-final win for New Zealand in 2011 and that's why this series win over the Wildcats means so much to Vickerman.

"I lost a mate in Kevin Braswell recently and I showed the boys that series where KB made massive plays to win us a Game 2, and Mika (Vukona) pretty much had a broken leg and played," Vickerman said.

"That's the other one for me that I'll always remember and obviously it was against Perth as well in that series. To me this one, with CG going for 40, IC (Ian Clark) having almost 40 (career-best 38), Bryce (Cotton) doing what he did, the comeback of theirs over there.

"There's so many talking points about this series and even the finish of this game, so it's certainly up there in the top two semi-final series that I've been part of."