The Bendigo Spirit’s uncontested home court success came to an end on Friday night against the Dandenong Rangers.
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On the first leg of a double-header weekend the Spirit were defeated by the Rangers 81-65.
“Energy wise and with our ball movement, we weren't good enough in the first quarter,” coach Simon Pritchard said.
“They put a lot of pressure on us which meant we couldn't see the open player and we turned the ball over too much.”
The Rangers made an early mark on the game with an eight point lead at the end of the first quarter.
“We had 15 points scored off turnovers by half time and that was the difference in the game,” Pritchard said.
By the end of the game the Rangers managed to score 26 points from turnovers compared to the Spirit’s 13.
“It was poor passing and poor movement, which was a problem we had against Sydney last week, we just didn’t move the ball while we were being pressured,” he said.
“We need to be able to penetrate and I thought we were fading away on our finishes too instead of going hard and the umpires are not going to reward you unless you go hard to the basket.”
By half time the Rangers extended their lead 44-29.
“We weren’t assertive enough, 44 points is far too many in the first half and because our offense is not operating efficiently at the moment...we didn't score nearly enough points,” Pritchard said.
Pritchard said a few “easy shots” that were missed helped the Rangers gain the upper hand.
“If they give you an easy shot, you can’t afford to miss them,” Pritchard said.
“They were able to play with complete freedom because they didn’t have the score board pressure on them.
“At the end of the third quarter it was a 22 point game.”
Spirit player Barbara Turner said from early in the game it felt as if the team had started on the back foot.
“We weren’t in attack on offense and we allowed their defense to push us around,” Turner said.
“Because our offense was so poor it led to the Rangers being able to transition.
"We’ve had success during our last two games on defense but our offense has not been there, so we need to fix that issue too and figure out what we need to do to improve.”
Newcastle young-gun Cassidy McLean was awarded the Spirit’s MVP.
Bendigo Spirit (5-3) will now hit the road and head to NSW where they will play the Sydney Uni Flames (0-8) on Sunday afternoon at Qudos Bank Arena, tip-off at 2.45pm.
“There are a few things we mastered at the end of the last game against the Flames, in terms of the team’s ball and player movement,” Pritchard said.
“We will do some practice on Saturday afternoon in Sydney and just sharpen on what we can do to attack them with our ball screen action and I think we can score some more points against them.”
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