Blazers hunting for Wolves again
TWO weeks after equalling their club record points haul against Oaklands Wolves at home, Derby Trailblazers go into the NBL Division One reverse fixture at St Albans tomorrow.
By putting 124 points on the board a fortnight ago, the Blazers equalled their highest number of points in a non-overtime league match, though they also conceded 93 points, which is 15.3 more than their average in the league this season.
Derby were much better defensively last Sunday, holding Team Newcastle to 69 points to pick up their
11th league win.
Maintaining that kind of defensive effort will be a key objective this weekend, as will trying to do a better job of restricting Wolves’ American guard Jordan Santiago, who piled in a game-high 32 points two weeks ago.
“We’re getting into the business end of the season, so for us, it’s about trying to peak around the time of the play-offs and make sure we’re playing our best basketball by that stage,” said Trailblazers head coach Matt Shaw.
“Going to Oaklands has the potential to be a difficult game. They’ve not had as many wins as they would’ve liked, but they’ve been in a lot of games, some of them right through to the latter stages.
“They’ve got a couple of outstanding players in Santiago and AJ Roberts, so we know we’ve got to play at our best and we can’t go down there taking them lightly just because they’re near the bottom of the league.”
Jacob Conway came off the bench to lead Derby with 24 points against Oaklands last time, while Blake Bowman added 20 and Malcolm Smith 19.
Smith says that with only four games of the regular season left, Derby are looking for another effective display.
“At this stage, we’re just trying to rack up wins to boost our play-off seeding but it’s also about playing well down the stretch,” he said.
“We’ve got to keep working to get better, because you never know who you’re going to face in the playoffs.
“I firmly believe we have the capability of beating anyone in the league, but we’ve just got to come ready to play and be ready to do what we know we can do.
“There’s a real contrast in our next two games, being away to Oaklands and then Solent, but that’s the challenge we face. We’ve got to be at the top of our game regardless of who we’re playing.
“If we don’t, we might find ourselves up against another situation like Bradford, when we were 30 points up, took our foot of the gas and it came back to bite us.”