Week #16 recap - Game #22 vs Mandurah Magic (96 – 129 loss)

As coaches, we need to be teachers, strategists, and psychologists. The patience of a saint, ability to listen and support, stay positive, know when to be supportive and when to have a rant…the list goes on. Ultimately as an old coaching mentor used to say, you need to be able to make teams over achieve.

I find it difficult to maintain an ongoing awareness of all these things and I try to get regular downtime to take a step back and review progress…objectify and take stock. The ability to self analyse, to review the situation and plan a path of improvement moving forward is something I have consciously tried to put in place over the past few years.

Psycho babble aside, the current situation is not an easy one. A team at the end of its three year program, decimated by injuries and circumstances. Performing well early, promising so much. It is true that opportunities are being presented to the fringe players, but it’s the adage “trying to put old heads on young shoulders”. These players were never expected to step into the roles they have this quickly, and against the quality of opposition currently in the league their inexperience is showing through.

None of this is meant in any way to take away from the efforts of the Mandurah Magic team that played us on the weekend. I have nothing but admiration for Jason Chalk and the players. Coach Chalk has taken a team that was struggling, and put in place discipline and team spirit, and provided a framework for their ongoing improvement. They played hard and disciplined, and consistently went to their strengths.

We struggled to get into a rhythm early and our poor early shooting percentage hurt us badly. But far more important was our lack of defensive intensity, focus and technique. We close out late on the ball, rotate late, our second rotation is non-existant. Our once crisp zone where we moved as the ball was in the air, applied pressure on-ball, anticipated off-ball…has now become second rate as we turn our heads and watch, close out short, slow and without pressure, and fail to consistently rebound.

We allowed a team that is averaging 91 points this season to make 129…a team that is bottom of the league at 38%fg to shoot 49%fg (52% from 3pt). Our defensive intensity was absolutely woeful.

Upsides:

• John Taylor returning for 32 minutes of play, and despite taking a half of basketball to find his rhythm still ending up as our top scorer with 24pts on 48%fg (and 5 assists)

Downsides:

• Defensive effort, understanding and technique
• Offensive fundamentals

John Taylor is in Melbourne across the weekend to attend the NBL Prospects Camp run by Ian Stacker and we wish him all the best. We have Jarrod Balcombe, Nathan Friend and Lucas Offereins returning to the team and will be aiming for a much improved effort this weekend.

This weekend is the Geraldton road trip. Geraldton are in good form and have a strong team, it will be a challenge for us to be competitive. However I believe with the right focus we can take the game to them.