THEY might look the same on the ladder but, in this league, no two wins are the same and no two losses are the same. That's doubly true in the NBL Cup environment with quick-fire games, short turnarounds and limited time on the practice floor.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Teams can meet on very different preparations and facing very different challenges game to game. That's true in any regular season, but it's magnified in this type of environment. What you can't do is use that as an excuse because everyone's in the same boat.
It's a situation where you really do need to focus on yourself and your own process and not too much on the other teams. It might sound cliched or tiresome to hear, but it's the only approach that brings any consistent success. It's why you hear coaches or players talk about performances more than straight wins and losses.
If you get too focused on wins and losses, it's very easy to get too high when you win a couple or too low if you lose a couple. If the focus is on performance you have a more realistic guide of where you're at. It's something Goorj is big on and something he really reminded us of after our loss to South East Melbourne on Sunday.
We went into the weekend confident of getting a couple of wins believing we were well prepared and in a pretty good position to be successful. The first one against Brisbane didn't go to plan but we felt we put our all into that and fought it out all the way down the stretch.
The one on Sunday against the Phoenix was obviously disappointing from the jump. I don't know whether guys that played a lot of minutes on Friday were a bit fatigued or we just weren't as prepared as we have been for other games but it seems South East Melbourne just have our number at the moment which is a bit which is frustrating.
Goorj doesn't usually say a whole lot after games, win or lose. He prefers to wait until he's watched the game back so it's not too emotion-fuelled. He did speak to us after that game and just reminded us that this feeling was always going to come at some stage.
It's a long season and we were never going to roll through our season and win every single game and have no dips. It's really about getting back to the way we were playing at the start of the season
It's no secret to us, and it's no secret to other teams, that we play best when we move the basketball and get it through hands. Other teams are definitely defending us differently denying both Tyler and Justinian and limiting their catches.
I thought both those guys played well over the weekend and they're great players. They're going to get their shots, but we've got to find away for them to do it when we're all involved and we're all moving the basketball.
We're not there at the moment. We've slipped a little bit on our stuff and our execution. It's about trying to make sure we do get back to what we all do best.
