Its great to see the Gold Coast Blaze starting to find some form and stringing some wins together.
My last post regarding them was heading in to their two game road-trip and how they needed to get at least one win. They upset the shaky Breakers in NZ and almost knocked off the 36'ers in Adelaide but fell just short.
Since then, they've defended their home court against the Townsville Crocodiles and last night against the Perth Wildcats. It was good to see them knock off the Crocs who won on the Gold Coast in round 1. Last night would also give the team confidence after they came from more than 20 points down to get the win against the #1 ranked Perth. The win set up by a defensive effort in the 3rd quarter that held the Wildcats to just FIVE points.
The Blaze started the season slowly but now find themselves in the top 4. I mentioned from day 1 that the Gold Coast would take time to gel and this has obviously been the case. Coach Joey Wright will be pleased with their development but will no doubt still expect more from them.
The keys to winning for the Blaze seem to be:
- So goes Adam Gibson, so goes the Blaze. When Gibbo has a good night, this usually leads to a win for the Blaze
- Gold Coast need offensive production from one or two players outside of their 3 main weapons (Harvey, Maxey & Ubaka). This tends to be from Gibbo, Petrie, Vukona or Goulding.
- Their defence is the catalyst for their offence.
Ahead for the Blaze will be a tough return encounter against the Wildcats but this time the two teams meet in Perth ...
No comments:
Post a Comment