Spirit aim for hat-trick of wins against LJ’s Flyers

Bendigo Spirit coach Kennedy Kereama knows there’s still plenty of room for improvement after back-to-back WNBL wins over the past fortnight as his team prepares to tackle Lauren Jackson’s Southside Flyers on the road on Saturday night.
While Kereama was proud of how the Spirit held their nerve in overtime against Sydney last week, especially after giving up a 15-point second-half lead, he’s under no illusions there’s a lot of work to do.
“You always take a win out of those situations,” Kereama said.
“We’ve shown how we can win both types of games.
“Defensively we could’ve been slightly better but it highlights what we’re doing is right.
“There’s still a lot of work to do. I don’t think any team is playing championship basketball right now.”
Kereama highlighted just how much talent is in the Flyers squad, led by Australian basketball great Jackson and fellow WNBA-experienced players Leilani Mitchell, Jasmine Dickey and Mercedes Russell.
“They’ve got more WNBA players in their team than any other team in the competition,” he said.
“They’re a very talented team and the biggest team in the league. It requires us to be very crafty with how we play offence.
“They’ve got a lot of very good players and are a highly-talented offensive unit with good rising stars and experience.
“They’ve got three or four players capable of scoring double figures every week, without mentioning ‘LJ’ who’s shown she can score 40 points in a game of basketball quite easily.”
GAME DETAILS
Spirit v Flyers
State Basketball Centre
Saturday, December 9
Tip-off at 7pm EDT
INJURY LIST
Sophia Locandro: Hamstring, return date TBA
Ella Gordon: Back, return date TBA
SPIRIT ROSTER
You can view the Spirit’s 2023-24 playing roster here
SEASON FIXTURES
You can view the Spirit’s 2023-24 season fixture here
HOW TO WATCH
All games will again be broadcast live, with Wednesday night games (and all finals games) on ESPN (Foxtel, KAYO and Sky Sports NZ), while all other games will be shown on the Nine Network’s free digital channel, 9Now. Internationally all games will be broadcast live on FIBA YouTube.