Heat stars out of derby
THE Townsville Heat’s quest for a historic QBL ‘threepeat’ has suffered two massive blows heading into tomorrow night’s quarter-final showdown with Mackay at Townsville Basketball Stadium.
Star import Jamell Anderson has left the Heat to join the Great Britain squad while veteran sharpshooter Peter Crawford is only a slim chance to play this weekend due to a knee injury.
Anderson (13.08 points) and Crawford (16.18) contribute almost 30 points a game and the Heat stumbled without them in last weekend’s final regular season clash with Rockhampton. Coach Rodney Anderson described the 104-77 loss as the worst during his tenure, but he hoped it would only make the Heat hungrier as they look to become the first team to win three straight titles.
“I’ve never had that happen to me so I was pretty pissed during the week and the guys felt it as well,” he said.
“Maybe that’s just woken us up at the right time. We can’t just roll out and win a game.
“We’re going to play teams of that calibre for the rest of this finals series so we have to take the next step and ramp it up in training during the week and make sure we turn up for every game.”
Jamell Anderson missed the start of the QBL season with his British Basketball League duties as the Heat relied heavily on local players such as Keegan Tudehope, Matt Rees and Ethan Betts to lead their title defence.
The Heat have also kept the bulk of their championship squad intact over the past three seasons and coach Anderson was adamant they could take the fight to Mackay without their English import.
“Ethan Betts just comes back in the starting line-up so from that standpoint we don’t really lose too much. Ethan’s a really high level defender and he scores about the same amount of points (as Anderson),” he said.
“We just have to make sure that we cover for Jamell in different ways and it’s not just going to be ‘Bettsy’. Matt Wight off the bench and Jarrad Figg had a really good game last week so other guys have got to step up as well.”
Crawford’s fitness could still be a late call after he had surgery last week to remove a piece of floating bone from his knee, but the former Townsville Crocs star backed his Heat teammates to keep their season alive for another week.
“Getting the swelling down is the most important thing after surgery so I haven’t done a whole lot on it,” he said.
Tomorrow night’s men’s quarter-final against Mackay tips off at 8pm after the women’s quarter-final against Mackay at 6pm at Townsville Basketball Stadium.