Fire should win league, Lightning coach concedes
ADELAIDE Lightning coach Chris Lucas says Townsville is the best team in the competition after his side lost to the Fire by 23 points on Saturday.
It was their second big loss to Townsville in as many weeks, prompting Lucas to admit the gap between the two sides is significant.
“They’ve got three in par- ticular quality players off their bench who were starting or playing major minutes 12 months ago and they have two imports who play 19 and 16 minutes,” Lucas said.
“They’re the deepest team in the league and they should win the whole competition with the depth they’ve got, with six people ( scoring) in double figures.
“It’s a big gap to make up with our scoring ability. We’ve just got to keep working on things.
“Catch- up basketball is really tough to play and I thought we did a really good job in the first quarter- and- abit, then made some really poor decisions offensively and they got on a 8- 0 run.”
The Lightning gave up a 20point lead in the first half and battled on in the second to go down 78- 101. Abby Bishop played a lone hand in offence with 24 points and needed more support.
“We had a game plan and just broke that for a few minutes in the second quarter,” Lucas said.
“We were going OK until that point, but we do need some other people to step up offensively.
“But I was really disap- pointed defensively in a lot of areas, particularly the ability to contain the ball.”
Lucas said Laura Hodges, who is recovering from a broken finger, was now “very doubtful” for the entire season even if Adelaide make finals but the coach said he was not even thinking about that yet.
Adelaide’s next game is against Dandenong away on Saturday night.