Gold Coast Blaze update

I'll get back to my normal blogging frequency within the next few days when corporate travel season slows down. This is the last week of madness before things die down for the Christmas holidays and then I can get back in to the world of basketball.

For now tho, here's a quick summary of the Gold Coast Blaze over the last weeks. The team is really starting to come together and heading in to round 12 they find themselves now in 3rd place on the NBL ladder thanks to a 4 game win-streak. Not just that, they're just one win behind the Hawks and Wildcats who are tied at the top of the table.

I mentioned in my last post about the team that they had one of their biggest challenges ahead of them when they had to go to Perth to take on the Wildcats. In what was likely the biggest win for them at this early stage of the season, they got the job done 82 - 78. Former Wildcats James Harvey and Chris Goulding took the chance to salute the crowd after the win which not surprisingly wasn't received well by the hometown fans.

The Blaze returned home and scraped over the line 69 - 68 against the Cairns Taipans. The low scoreline wasn't a huge surprise when you see that team captain James Harvey had an off night shooting 0 of 8 from the field. The fact that they were still able to win despite their star having an off night is the positive to take away from this game. I'm sure the game plan for the Taipans was to make it a slow, knock-down drag out affair. Not great for the fans tho as one of my friends who was there described it on Facebook as: has witnessed a lot of ugly games of hoops in his time, but Gold Coast vs Cairns last night is the winner. 69-68 win to Gold Coast. Wow

The bad news for the team is that they have lost big man Pero Cameron who will be out for at least the next month with a recurring knee injury. Its not a huge (pardon the pun) on-court loss for the team but with Greg Vanderjagt still out their depth will be tested.

Next up for the Blaze is a home game tomorrow night against the Sixers and then they have a week and a half before the Hawks come to the coast. I haven't been to a game for a while so I'm thinking the top of the table clash with the Hawks will be a good one to get along to. If they can get wins in both of these games it should see them take the top spot on the ladder.