PHOENIX ROCKED AS WILLIAMS RULED OUT
SOUTH East Melbourne’s dire injury crisis just got a whole lot worse with star big man Alan Williams ruled out of the Christmas Eve clash with Adelaide.
The former NBA big man, on Wednesday, suffered an ankle injury in Phoenix’s win over Brisbane and hasn’t come up for the grudge match in Adelaide.
Phoenix have been hit so hard by injury, they will go into the game one short of a full roster and did not even have time to get paperwork through to add an 11th man for the trip.
It’s a massive blow for the Phoenix, considering Adelaide has just added NBA champion Ian Clark to its bevy of stars on the back of a pair of season-steadying wins.
Williams has been one of the NBL’s best big men, who is second in the league at 9.2 rebounds to go with 16.2 points, and adds to a void that includes injured stars Gary Browne and Ryan Broekhoff, following Chinese centre Zhou Qi’s exit.
But with adversity in basketball comes opportunity and the club’s only remaining available import Trey Kell says the Phoenix kids – Junior Madut (pictured right), Grant Anticevich and development players Owen Foxwell and Anzac Rissetto – will throw caution to the wind.
“We’re down some key guys but, at the same time, we have a lot of trust and faith in some of the younger guys that helped us win the game up in Brisbane and it will be no different in Adelaide,” Kell said.
“It’s a quick turnaround and backto-back road games but we’ve got the next-man-up mentality and we have all the confidence in the world that we can take care of business.”
The youngsters were force-fed minutes at the beginning of the season as the Phoenix dealt with a host of injuries and Kell believes that is now paying off.
“With the injuries we dealt with at the beginning of the year, they definitely got a lot more minutes than they were expecting and that helped speed up their development,” Kell said.
“Now it’s starting to pay-off for them when we need it most in the situation we find ourselves.”
With the club’s big-man stocks gutted, heart and soul big man Dane Pineau is likely to start at the four, but expect a healthy dose of Rissetto, the 208cm, 116kg Kiwi man-mountain who, at just 21, has fast become a cult figure after he was plucked by the Phoenix off a worksite where he was working with his dad as a labourer.
TheAdelaide 36ers (8-8, seventh) will face South East Melbourne Phoenix (12-7, third) at 5.30pm on Christmas Eve at Adelaide Entertainment Centre