MELO VOWS TO IMPROVE DEFENCE AS SNAKES SEEK A WIN
THREE factors have defined Melo Trimble’s short NBL career so far.
Firstly, lots of points from his talented hands, followed by plenty of the same from his direct opponents and lastly, not much winning at all for his club, the Cairns Taipans.
His ability to score at will and then let others do the same at the other end has followed Trimble through his college and NBA G-League career.
After spending three years as the star of the University of Maryland’s offence, Trimble left college a year early to enter the draft, did not get selected by an NBA club and went on to play summer league with the Philadelphia 76ers.
“He’s a scoring-minded combo guard,” said one NBA scout in a story about Trimble in The Washington Post last year during summer league.
“He rarely makes his teammates better, and if he isn’t making shots, he’s a liability because his defence isn’t any good.”
Those words are harsh but the Snakes leading man is owning it, declaring his poor defence has played a significant part in the club’s 1-7 start to the 2018-19 NBL season.
Trimble has found scoring easy since he arrived in Australia but statistics show, his opponents are going close to cancelling out his input.
“It is up to me to start the pace on defence and offence, going into these next few games I have to switch it around and really focus on the defensive end to get out team going,” Trimble said.
“I really want to get better on defence and one of the reasons we are not coming out on top in some of the games is partly because of my defence.
“I know I have to get better and as a team, we need to get better. I need to be a leader and that starts on defence. Coach tells me a lot about defence and we watch a lot of film.”
Club captain Alex Loughton has listed himself as day-byday with his ankle recovery but is still optimistic he can face Adelaide on Friday evening.
Cairns travel to South Australia today as they try and snap their seven game losing skid.
The last team to lose eight straight NBL games was the Illawarra Hawks in OctoberNovember 2014, who lost 11 games in a row, which also came after winning their season opener against Townsville, like the Snakes did against Brisbane this season.