Bruton: 'We have got the talent'

Adelaide 36ers head coach CJ Bruton says his side has the talent to make the playoffs and will continue to fight during the final three games of the regular season.

The 36ers are still a mathematical chance of making the NBL23 play-in top six, which will need Adelaide to win the next three games and hope for other results.

“We want to give ourselves every chance to be successful, to show that fight and to show what we are capable of doing,” Bruton said on Thursday.

“I want to see the fight, we need to show the fight and represent the club in the right way, represent each other in the right way as an organisation, as players to perform at an elite level.

“We need to keep building and keep fighting and doing it together.”

Bruton said after losing to Brisbane and Melbourne last round, the side had a rough start to the week, but the focus is now on the trip to Cairns to face the Taipans.

“It’s always tough but it’s about making sure every day I come in and bring the energy and making sure we share the ball and play together,” he said.

“It’s kind of sad after what we did (beating the Phoenix Suns), but after what we did it put a target on our back, which I knew was coming, but how we responded and how we played.

“It does fall on me, being able to put a squad like that together and to see what we were able to do in pre-season, there’s a lot of good things.

“The pressure from outside, we need to manage that a little bit better and continue to learn and get in the right frame of mind from what I saw as reasonable, we had enough to be in the playoffs.”