Takeaways from South East Melbourne's second Throwdown loss this season

We check in on the Phoenix’s playoff credentials, after a familiar concern emerged against Melbourne United.

Credit: Daniel Bennett Photography

The plan heading into the weekend was to dig into the South East Melbourne Phoenix’s recent strong form and, given Melbourne United’s absentees, I presumed another win may have been coming. Instead, Jo Lual-Acuil produced one of the better individual performances of the season and Dean Vickerman had his team attacking all the right areas and playing to their strengths. It served as a reminder of what’s required for the Phoenix to be in the contender tier.

Vickerman postgame:

"[Missing Ian Clark, Matthew Dellavedova, and Luke Travers] was the biggest concern coming in — how were we going to go with ball-handling? What kind of pressure were they going to put up the floor. It was pretty comfortable advancing the basketball tonight and getting into our stuff, being able to execute, and trying to pick on some advantages that we thought we had."

One target area was relentlessly testing Alan Williams’ defence — the part of his game that kept him off an All-NBL team last season. Williams’ bulldozing offence and prolific rebounding is the team’s strength for much of the time, but on the other end, he can also be the easiest attack point for opponents.

Mike Kelly postgame:

“There was miscommunication and guys got downhill. I'm picturing Shea Ili in the paint, a number of times at the rim, or making plays for others. Jo [Lual-Acuil] got downhill a number of times. Inconsistent is a good word… The defence needs to be a constant buy in from the guys, and I can talk about it, and other guys can talk about it, but we just need to consistently demand it."

Here’s some of those Ili drives, with Williams either struggling to find the right positioning, move nimbly enough, or be much of a rim deterrent or helper for when his guard gets beat.