Illawarra Hawks coach Rob Beveridge accused his side of choking in Wednesday's 99-96 NBL home loss to the Perth Wildcats.
The Hawks outplayed the Wildcats for most of the night, building an 11-point three-quarter-time lead before being run down by the visitors in the final stretch.
American guard Jermaine Beal was unstoppable in the fourth period, roasting the Hawks for 14 of his game-high 26 points.
Second-placed Perth's record stands at 6-2 after the round six victory, while Illawarra dropped to 4-5.
Beveridge didn't pull any punches in his post-match comments, openly questioning his team's mental toughness after they were manhandled 45-33 by the Cats in the rebounding department.
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"We can't afford to keep choking down the stretch," Beveridge said.
"If these players can't recognise what our true weaknesses are - defence and rebounding - we're in deep trouble.
"We cannot keep losing games where we are the better team for the majority of the game, and that's what I'm really disappointed about.
"We stopped playing defence and stopped rebounding in the fourth quarter. Simple as that.
"We've harped on about this with the group - we are the worst rebounding team in the league. Every week we do so much practise and talk about it and what we need to do, and when it really comes to the crunch our guys are mentally soft.
Right now, they don't have the ability as a group to close a game out like that.
"Our inability to stop teams when it really counts is a real concern for me."
Down by two at quarter-time, the Hawks asserted themselves with a crowd-pleasing 21-6 run in the second period and took a 59-51 lead into the halftime break.
Former Wildcats import Kevin Lisch (25 points) and centre AJ Ogilvy (25) kept the scoreboard ticking over for Illawarra and the lead was 79-68 with a quarter to play.
But the Hawks' rebounding issues became more obvious than ever in crunch time, as the Cats clinically chipped away at the deficit.
"It was perseverance and we rode some backs out there - Jermaine was unbelievable," Perth coach Trevor Gleeson said.
"In the third quarter we changed up to a zone [defence] and that got some momentum going our way. Defensively we stepped up.
"Even though there was a points spread at the end of the third, guys came to the bench believing they could win. The guys stayed strong.
"When you're down against a team on their home court and they're shooting the ball unbelievably well, you have to dig deep and find something, and we found that."
Perth have played Illawarra three times in as many weeks, winning all three games.
The Wildcats fly to Auckland on Thursday morning to prepare for a Friday night battle with the New Zealand Breakers.
Illawarra have a 10-day break before their round seven road duel with the Adelaide 36ers.
