Hoops

Lightning - where to from here?

How bout we talk defensive deficiencies because at the end of the day their opponents are out scoring them. His defensive decisions make no sense.

We miss Steph Talbot. Watching her drive into the key and dish with such ease makes me wonder how Ange gets as many assists as she does because I sure as hell can't work out where she is dribbling and where the ball will end up. I rarely go since the Chris Lucas fiasco and nothing I have seen under the new coach will get me back there.

Good luck signing players if that happens

While I don't mean to fuel the fire, I've heard that the Lighting are looking into offering Dickel a contract extension for next season.

Could be full of hot air, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if it eventuated.

They need a point guard who can handle the ball. Until that happens things won't change.

As it is, Marino, who once was a reasonable outside shot and was reasonably effective from outside, seems to have now decided she wants to dribble even more and repeatedly puts herself in no-win situations inside the key, so they not only don't get her outside shooting, she loses the ball in 'giant land' or throws it away because of the pressure.

Putting all that aside, there is a common factor between the turnovers and the performance inside: passing skills. For mid-court turnovers you can argue the receiver is half the problem, but it's hard to argue that with the centres, who were repeatedly in great position and simply weren't given the ball. And when there was a delivery it was invariably a sloppy, loopy pass that didn't reach the target &/or was deflected or picked off.

A few drills focusing on varying passes [bounce pass, anyone?] and hitting targets through hands/defenders would be a big step in the right direction.

And for what it's worth, I too thought yesterday was the best I've seen from Stewart. Definitely showed more aggression, quickness and awareness, in my opinion.

As for Poppens ... a tour de force!

I was also at the game and I don't think enough credit is given to Poppens on the defensive end. She worked tirelessly on our twin bigs to deny them position on the low block and just outhustled everyone on the floor. A very high workrate. I was very impressed. Her shot is horrible though, although somehow she got them to drop. Terrible shooting action.

Also, Stewart did play very well. Her defence was solid and part of the reason for our dominant second quarter. Offensively she didn't have a great night finishing off, but found good spots and grabbed some important offensive boards.

Chegog also showed good signs. While she didn't have a good night, she showed glimpses that she could be a very good player in the WNBL. Athletic, tall, with some solid moves in the post.

There were some good signs yesterday but it may be too late to turn things around.