Defence holds key to hopes: Brassard
COACH Claudia Brassard believes the Townsville Fire need to lock down from the opening whistle in tomorrow night’s WNBL semi- final to keep Sydney’s offensive weapons in check.
The Flames are one of the WNBL’s most potent scoring units with every member of their starting five averaging in double figures, led by Asia Taylor with 19.63 points a game.
The Fire have shown they’re a top defensive team this season – conceding just 70.14 points a game behind only Melbourne ( 67.95) – but they gave up a whopping 107 to Sydney in their last encounter.
That defeat was easily the most points Townsville have conceded all season, eclipsing their 87- 68 loss to Perth in round five, and saw them also drop the series split to the Flames.
The stakes will be even higher for the opening game of their best- of- three series at Townsville Stadium and Brassard said the Fire’s defence can’t afford to give Sydney an inch.
“It’s a semi- final and it doesn’t get a much bigger game on our home floor so we’re hopeful for a better start. It’s all about how we come out and making sure we can defend them,” Brassard said.
“We don’t want to allow 107 like we did the last time we played them.
“Ideally if we can keep them under 80 then I think we can come out on top.
“Any one of their starting five can get 20 or 30 on the night. They’re really good players and most of them are national team or WNBA players so I think it’s going to have to be a team effort there.
“They’ve got some excellent shooters and they showed that the other night.
“They couldn’t miss from the three- point line so we’ve got to make sure we take that away, but at the same time you can’t let Asia and ( Jennifer) Hamson just walk in the keyway and get easy buckets.
“It’s probably a little bit cheesy, but it’s going to be defence that wins championships so making sure that we’re doing the right things defensively to stop their scoring power.”
Brassard’s first season as head coach last year ended with a 2- 0 semi- final loss to Sydney, but the former club captain insisted that disap- pointment would not be a big motivator in their rematch.
“We just try to focus on what we’re doing this year,” Brassard said.
“It’s a completely different team and I think we’re playing a little bit different than we did last year. We’re not as reliant on Suzy ( Batkovic) and Mia ( Murray) to get all the points for us and we share the ball a lot better than we did last year.
“Certainly those players will remember that ( loss).
“There was just a lack of urgency and Sydney couldn’t miss and they got on a roll and there was nothing we could do right.
“We don’t want to repeat that, but we’re playing here in front of our home crowd and it’s a really good crowd and that gets us going as well.
“The girls will be nervous as you would be for a semi, but being here at home is going to be a big plus for us.”