The Coach Reflects – Round 5

The rollercoaster ride that has been the Adelaide 36ers start to the NBL season continued with a loss at home on Monday and while there were disappointing aspects for sure, coach Conner Henry is taking the bigger picture approach.

It's a little difficult to know exactly what to make of the Sixers start to the 2021 NBL season with eight of the opening nine matches having been at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre ahead of the next month of the season being dedicated to the NBL Cup in Melbourne.

The 36ers have come out of the opening part of the season with a positive record at 5-4 but Monday night's loss at home to the Brisbane Bullets to the tune of 19 points did put a dampener on things. A win to go 6-3 would have been a fabulous start.

What the two games in Round 5 against the Bullets showed was just how quickly teams can bounce back in this league and how little separates each of the teams.

Going back a week earlier and Adelaide was equally disappointing in a 19-point defeat at home to the Sydney Kings, but seven days later in their first road trip of the season the 36ers were tremendous beating the Bullets 85-70 in Brisbane.

That should have had the 36ers on a high coming back home for the last home game in some time against the same opponent on Monday, but it was the Bullets turning things around to end up winning 93-74.

That leaves Adelaide with the 5-4 record heading to Melbourne for the NBL Cup where their first game is on Sunday against the Sydney Kings, and over the space of the next month they will play all eight teams once.

In reaction to the Monday night loss to the Bullets, 36ers coach Conner Henry thought it was the effort areas that let the Sixers down more than anything highlighted by losing the rebound count by 11.

"I don’t think we got ahead of ourselves, we just didn’t execute or bring the effort. We all know that this is an extremely difficult league every night and that you've got to bring that intensity on a nightly basis," Henry said. 

"I don’t think we did that collectively and I don’t think we communicated with each other on the court as best as we could, and defensively when one guy breaks down on an assignment or call, everybody else has to make up for that. There'll be a lot of film that we have to watch to get ready for the bubble."

Often a rebound count is the ultimate sign of effort and if your team is switched on, and willing to do all the little things like box out and to fight for the loose ball.

In the win over the Bullets on Saturday night the 36ers won the rebound battle 52 to 39 but then in the return encounter on Monday lost it 49 to 38.

Henry is fully aware if his team loses the possession game they aren’t going to end up on top on the scoreboard too often.

"We gave up 15 offensive rebounds, 11 in the first half and automatically we're on our heels," he said. 

"As you're watching the game and shots are going up, we've got three guys on our team ball watching and a couple of guys underneath fighting for their lives to win the ball. 

"We can't not get possessions. We have to get every possession we possibly can and we get dominated on the boards, it sets us back and we have to play catch up so that was extremely disappointing."

It was also an eventful week for the 36ers coming off that loss to Sydney with the departure of import guard Donald Sloan and arrival of short-term replacement Jeremy Kendle.

Kendle showed encouraging signs on debut in the loss on Monday with five points and three assists in just 10 minutes, and Henry is glad to have him on board for what looks likely to be the entire NBL Cup at this stage.

"Right now Jeremy Kendle is our import that we've just signed," he said. 

"He got some minutes in this game and we're still getting him up to speed. I'm glad he's here, he fits in with our group, he's a good guy and he is going to help us going forward."

Reflecting on the opening nine games and five rounds of the season before heading to Melbourne for the NBL Cup, these last two 19-point losses have been especially hard for Henry to come to terms with.

But there were better signs in the five wins and with Daniel Johnson and Isaac Humphries impressive up front, and Josh Giddey and Sunday Dech the standouts in the backcourt, Henry does take heart from the way the 36ers have started a season like no other. 

"There's been a couple of losses this season that don’t sit well with me and there's been a couple of losses where we've played hard, and come up short," Henry said.

"It gets back to those certain one percent things that we talk about for example offensive rebounding. But hey, we are 5-4 and we have played the most games of anybody because we've been at home and the record is what it is. 

"I wish we were a couple of more wins higher but that's not what it is. We've had a long pre-season and these first nine games have been gruelling in the sense that our first six games were in 16 days. 

"That took a lot but we've since had a couple of games in a couple of weeks to get back some of that fatigue we were showing. We'll take it, it's not the best but we are in the mix with everybody else and there's a long way to go."