Make or break for Lightning in grand final series

IT’S win or bust for the Adelaide Lightning tonight but coach Chris Lucas says all the pressure is on Canberra in game two of the WNBL grand final series.

The Capitals hold a 1-0 lead in the three-game series to decide the championship after beating the Lightning 88-67 at home on Saturday night.

But Lucas said with a star- studded team Canberra carried the weight of expectation and he’s hoping his team embraces the underdog tag to force the series to game three.

“There is pressure on Canberra, the expectation on that team that’s been recruited is to win the championship,” Lucas said.

“And I think we can still maintain that we’re the underdog, we knew that from day one, but if we get the support here that I know the club has been working on, who knows if we can take it to three games and put the pressure right back on.

“Canberra are highly talented, let’s not hide away from that. Three of their starters would go close to starting for Australia if we were playing tomorrow, and you’ve got Kia Nurse who is an absolute superstar and a veteran in Kelly Wilson steering the ship.

“So we’re under no illu- sions of the talent they’ve got but we feel at our best we can match them, and early in the game is going to be pretty important.”

Adelaide admitted they failed defensively in game one when they gave up 88 points to the Capitals who inflicted a lot of the damage from beyond the three-point line.

“The only way we’re going to compete is to get that lower, so our focus is on the defensive end and hopefully we can turn our offensive game back into that,” Lucas said.

“We’re in the contest, we’ve earnt the right to be in the (grand) final, we’ve lost three games out of our last 14 so the reality is we deserve to be there and with the right approach there is no reason we can’t take it right up to them.”

The Lightning more than matched the Capitals early in game one when they led by 12 points but weren’t able to sustain it.