By Chris Wilson

Courageous Capitals lift to extinguish Sydney Flames

CANBERRA coach Tom Maher labelled his team as the comeback queens after the Capitals won back-to-back Women's National Basketball League titles at the AIS Arena yesterday.

The Capitals came back from a 17-point deficit early in the second half to beat the Sydney Flames 69-67 and claim their third WNBL championship in four seasons.

It was Maher's seventh WNBL title as a coach. He will now walk away after a one-season stint with the Capitals, but the former Australian Opals mentor said he had never coached a team with as much courage and character.

"We didn't always do things the fight way but I've never experienced a team that got in so many holes so often and got up and won," Maher said.

"We did that at least five times this year, where we were totally gone. In normal teams you'd lose every one of those games. We not only got back into those games but we won every one of them.

"When we were in real trouble the team found a way to get out. It was staggering."

The Capitals were in big trouble yesterday, trailing the Flames 27-39 at half-time and 29-46 early in the second half.

It was virtually the same situation the Capitals found themselves in in the semi-final against Townsville when Lauren Jackson saved them with a super-human effort.

While Jackson dominated yesterday's game with 30 points, 23 rebounds and five blocks, her teammates came to her aid in the second half to make the comeback possible.

Jackson scored only four points in the third quarter as the Capitals went on a 16-0 run midway through the period to reduce their deficit to 50-52.

When captain Lucille Bailie scored from a lay-up with five minutes remaining, the Capitals took the lead for the first time since the fourth minute.

Sydney refused to give in, guard Narelle Lindsay hitting a giant three-pointer with 82 seconds remaining to regain the lead, 66-65 for the Flames.

Jackson again hijacked the lead for the Capitals, while guard Kristen Veal extended the advantage to two points with a crucial free-throw.

Sydney's Belinda Snell had a chance to fie the game with 2.7 seconds remaining, but she missed the first of her two freethrows.

Sydney coach Karen Dalton consoled Snell, who had 11 points for the Flames.

"It's not the end of the game that costs you the win it's the ones in the middle - the opportunities we missed," Dalton said.

"Canberra got the margin back very, very quickly. It doesn't take much for momentum to swing and for them to go on the front foot and for us to go a little bit negative, which is probably what we did.

"They ended up putting the ball in the hole when it counted and probably the biggest factor for us was the fact we didn't come up with defensive rebounds. They scored 25 points from second chance points. You can't let a team get that and think you're going to come away with a win."

Bailie had 19 points for the Capitals, a perfect partner to Jackson in the paint.

The Capitals did a good job containing Sydney's three chief scorers, Snell, Shelley Hammonds (13 points, 11 rebounds) and Natalie Hughes (9 points).

"I thought we were in trouble," Maher said. "But you do refer to your experiences and when a team comes out of a hole so often, you never doubt them."

Jackson scored all of Canberra's 11 points in the first quarter as the Capitals trailed 11-17. Canberra's shot selection was terrible, the Caps shooting a miserable 16 per cent from the field.

The Capitals had just three scorers at half-time as the Flames dominated with some sizzling team play and hot outside shooting to snare three-pointers.