We’ll focus on full team effort: Suzy
SUZY Batkovic insists the Townsville Fire won’t be distracted by the “Liz Cambage Show” during the WNBL grand final series.
Batkovic and Melbourne Boomers star Cambage will be the marquee match- up in the first game of their best- of- three series at Townsville Stadium tomorrow night.
The Australian Opals duo have been the dominant forces in the WNBL this season, both averaging double- doubles.
Cambage took some time to find her feet back in Australia after a fiveyear absence, but she has stamped her authority during the finals as leading scorer and rebounder.
Batkovic admitted the 203cm centre was hard to stop when she drives to the basket, but the Fire captain added it would be misguided to spend all their energy defending Cambage.
Boomers captain Jenna O’Hea and guards Bec Cole and Maddie Garrick have played brilliant supporting roles to their star centre and Batkovic said the Fire had to focus on playing strong team basketball to counter that.
“Liz is a big body and she’s going to get hers, but it’s not just the Lizzie Show,” Batkovic said.
“It is one key ( match- up), but we’re not just focused on Liz. They’ve got many great players and I think Jenna O’Hea is huge for them.
“She’s their captain, their leader. She can score when she needs to and she knows when to distribute and just organise them really well so, for me, I think she’s a massive key.
“There’s going to be other people that we need to slow down and it’s going to come down to team defence.”
The Boomers are yet to beat Townsville in three clashes this season, but Fire vice- captain Mia Murray felt they were now playing a different style which was less reliant on Cambage.
“I think they handle Liz a little bit differently now rather than just wait- ing until she gets fouled off. They’re sort of drip feeding her into the game a little bit and playing her different,” Murray said.
“They play a little bit of small ball and Jenna ( O’Hea) might slip into the four or the point guard position so they change up their positions.
“Guy Molloy ( Boomers coach) is pretty tactical like that so it’ll be interesting to see what they come at us with.” Batkovic expected Melbourne to have a similar focus on team defence given the Fire boast arguably the deepest side in the league, with championship winners Micaela Cocks and Darcee Garbin coming off the bench.
“I think Melbourne are a tough, competitive team, but I do think we run extremely deep.
“I think we have the deepest team in the league by far,” Batkovic said. “We’ve got multiple scorers in our team.
“So they’ve got to respect everybody. If they’re not then players are going to be wide open.
“At the end of the day for us, it’s just about collective basketball on the offensive end and on the defensive end. I think that makes us really strong.”