Lynx’s defence shines in second half
Perth Lynx coach Ryan Petrik is still unsure why his team is struggling especially defensively in first halves this season, but what he saw in the second half on Saturday night certainly eases those concerns.
The Lynx were back home at Bendat Basketball Centre on Saturday night up against a Sydney Flames team fresh off only managing 54 points the entire game a few days earlier in Adelaide in a loss against the Lightning.
However, Sydney put 54 points on the Lynx in the first half alone and Petrik went into the half-time break looking to change some things and for a response from his group, but also with the knowledge that the Flames potentially couldn’t keep up the physicality they had been playing with.
That all came to fruition with the Lynx scoring the first 15 points of the second half on the way to outscoring the Flames 41 points to 24 after the break to score the 84-78 victory and improve to a 4-1 record on the season.
Summing up the game afterwards and Petrik isn’t exactly sure what’s going wrong in the first halves, but he was pleased with the response in the second half with Laeticia Amihere leading the charge with 28 points with Ally Wilson adding 19 while Steph Gorman hit four three-pointers.
“The second half was much better than the first. Their freedom of movement in the first half especially was really bad from us and we just didn’t do a good enough job of forcing them backwards with anything,” Petrik said.
“They were just able to go wherever they felt like in offence whereas the physicality they opposed to us we couldn’t find anything for offensively in the first half.
“We ratcheted that up in the second half and got a much better result. They had 54 at half-time and finished with 78 so to only give up 24 for the entire second half meant we finally started to get some stuff right. But the first half was really poor defensively.”
Over the course of the first five games of the season the Lynx have been part of, the scoring rates in the first half opposed to the second has been dramatically different.
The Lynx have averaged 49.2 points and conceded 49.4 points a game in the first halves this season but then after half-time, they have been scoring 39.2 points while only giving up 32.4.
That has somewhat been by design for Petrik to have his team outlasting and wearing down their opponents, but he still wants their first halves to improve.
“We’ve got to figure out, the first halves have been sloppy for sure but we also rotate pretty hard and we’re kinda hoping we can catch some teams in the second half,” Petrik said.
“This was our first game in a week, but LA’s (Amihere) played 34 and (Anneli) Maley 33 minutes, and everyone else is under that.
“I don’t know if we’d have anyone in the top 10 in the league for minutes played and that’s by design and without (Amy) Atwell as well.
“We try to rotate pretty hard and I don’t know if that means why we’re leaking in the first half, but maybe it’s why we’re coming home with a wet sail in the second half, maybe.”
Looking back on Saturday night’s game against Sydney and the Flames were able to get on top in the first half largely through the presence down low of Cayla George and Mikaela Ruef.
George ended the game with 19 points and 16 rebounds while Ruef almost had a triple-double by half-time and had 10 points, 16 boards and eight assists by the end, but Petrik felt their physical style would always be difficult to maintain.
“I also think it’s a hard way to play and if we’re going to switch that much stuff, the odd high-low is going to work but it’s like wrestling for 40 minutes and it’s really hard work, I imagine,” he said.
“Wrestling sucks and trying to do it for 40 minutes is tough. I thought in the first five minutes they were elite at wrestling down low one-on-one and getting our guards in trouble, whereas in the second half I thought their bigs started to get a bit more tired and fatigued.”
While there were impressive offensive performances including Amihere’s 28 points and Gorman’s four three-pointers, the win against the Flames largely came from the defensive second half performance from the Lynx.
Even a lot of Amihere’s points in transition came from her forcing four steals and the Lynx did cause the Flames to have 20 turnovers for the game scored 18 points off those.
While the bar is simply not to suck too much defensively, Petrik was pleased to get a win where their defence was able to shine in the second half.
“We don’t talk about our defence too often and we try not to suck at it as we have mentioned numerous times,” Petrik said.
“We don’t want to give up 54 in a half but the defence was really on point in the second half and we’re just not quite sure why we start like that or why we come home like that.
“Certainly when we’re flying around and active we’re really good because teams clearly have an advantage on us in the physical department, and we clearly have an advantage in the athleticism department on most teams.
“We’re just trying to start on those terms from the start, but it’s pleasing that our defence got our offence going eventually, but it’s something we spend all week on and we don’t always nail it obviously.”