Mitch Creek has berated his own performance, while shouldering the blame for South East Melbourne's second-half capitulation to his old side, Adelaide 36ers, in the NBL.
The former 36ers captain Creek had looked poised to celebrate an NBL win on his old home floor on Friday before the Sixers' second-half revival left the Phoenix ace taking the 96-93 defeat very much to heart.
It was a classic tale of two halves at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre with the Phoenix dominant in the opening half to be on track to bounce back from Sunday's disappointing Throwdown loss to the shorthanded Melbourne United.
South East Melbourne produced their best first quarter of the season with 35 points to be 17 up at quarter-time and stretched the lead to 18 at the half as they piled on 53 points on 52 per cent shooting.
But the Phoenix managed just 14 points in the third quarter, with the 36ers forging to victory in impressive fashion with DJ Vasiljevic leading the charge with 29 points.
The Phoenix were outscored by 17 points during Creek's 33 minutes of action, leaving the 31-year-old captain flat and annoyed with his own display afterwards.
"I had the worst efficiency on the team at minus-17 and that's bulls**t from me. I've got to be on the court and still winning, and making winning plays on both ends," Creek said.
"That's not going to cut it in this league at all and with the lead we had in the first half, that's a bad number for me to look at considering I played quite a lot of minutes.
"I've got to take a lot of responsibility for the change of pace and flow, and relieve some of that from some of the players who might feel some of that tension."
While Adelaide's second-half surge became the story of the night as they shot 8-of-14 from beyond the arc after missing all nine attempts in the opening half, the other talking point was the return of another old Sixers' favourite Daniel Johnson in Phoenix colours.
After winning seven club MVP awards, he wasn't wanted by the Sixers for NBL24 and was to continue his career overseas, but South East Melbourne snapped him up to replace the injured Gorjok Gak.
Creek had previously played with Johnson in Adelaide and the 35-year-old, who has scored the most points and collected the most rebounds of current players, drained two first-half threes to silence his old home fans.
"DJ is a club hero here (in Adelaide), he's an NBL legend and if I was in his position I probably wouldn't be too happy coming back to Adelaide," Creek said.
"I wasn't too happy coming back for a while, but we are professionals and whether you get treated the right way or the wrong way, it's about how you treat others in return.
"He is a professional, walks in with his head held high knowing his family is in the crowd supporting him, and I couldn't be prouder to call him my teammate again."
