Cocks told to think selfish
TOWNSVILLE Fire coach Claudia Brassard has urged veteran guard Micaela Cocks to find her selfish streak ahead of a potentially seasondefining double against the Bendigo Spirit.
Cocks has reclaimed the starting role in recent weeks and made it count, dropping a team- high 19 points in last weekend’s loss to Melbourne including 3/ 4 three- pointers.
The New Zealander is the Fire’s most consistent longrange threat, and Brassard said she wanted Cocks to look for more opportunities to put shots up.
“We set her a target for how many threes we want her to put up. She gets most of them, but we’d still be happy for her to put up a few more,” Brassard said.
“She’s so selfless and wants to try to make sure other players are involved and doesn’t want to overshoot the ball. But when she’s shooting at such a high percentage it’s not a selfish thing if she’s shooting it and that’s the message we’re trying to get through to her.”
The defending champions have been desperate for more scorers to support Suzy Batkovic – who is third in the league with 19.38 points per game, but no other Fire player is averaging in double figures.
The Fire’s bigs have dominated their offence so far this season, but Cocks ( 9.38) and star recruit Tess Madgen ( 8.25) were both more involved last weekend and Brassard is hopeful the team has turned a corner.
“Tess was really aggressive and put some points on the board, Micaela Cocks did the same, Laurin ( Mincy) was way more aggressive,” the coach said.
“Tess took a while to find her feet in a new team. She’d been away from the league for two seasons as well so it’s nice for her to have a good weekend away and hopefully she’ll take confidence from it.”
The Fire ( 3- 5) travel to Bendigo to face the Spirit ( 6- 3) on Saturday before a return clash at Townsville Stadium next Thursday.
Bendigo have been the surprise packets this season, knocking off the star- studded Melbourne Boomers twice and they’ve won four of their past five matches.
Few had given last season’s wooden spooners a chance given their relative lack of WNBL experience after losing Kelsey Griffin to Canberra, but Brassard insisted the Fire won’t take the Spirit lightly.