semi-final 1 – tonight in the west
And then there were 4… While Sydney and Bendigo battle on the East side of Australia Townsville’s semi final series with Perth starts in the West tonight. The teams face off at this stage for a third year in a row, and after three games against each other this season, there aren’t many secrets left. It’s why Shannon Seebohm’s happy to let the hosts know, his side will be trying to slow down their offence.
“It’s going to be a defensive game for us. You know making sure we lock in on that and don’t allow them to get good shots at the basket and don’t allow some of their key players to get going.”
The coach expects the Lynx to lift on the glass after being out rebounded during last Sunday’s second place shootout at the Fire Pit. He just hopes the visitors don’t offer up as many boards when they’re trying to score.
“We had 25 offensive rebounds so I’m sure they’ll be looking to address that. We’ve been a pretty good rebounding team all year so hopefully we can continue to do that but you know hopefully we make some more shots, so there’s not as many to go around.”
Seebohm suspects what was on the line in the final round of the regular season contributed to a few players potentially being a little more on edge than usual, he’ll tell them to try and stress less… Despite an even more high stakes showdown.
“I think it was great for us to go through that and experience that environment and play under that pressure. Obviously the game didn’t go the way we wanted it to but I think we’ll learn a lot from those situations. Going forward just really focus on each possession at a time, as cliché as that sounds, just forget about the scoreboard and forget about the outcome.”
Rookie Abbey Ellis believes that playoff preview has her better prepared for at least 2 more epic encounters.
“For sure yeah it was so intense I feel like every play was do or die which was great! It got me ready for finals, and afterwards it was kind of like alright that game’s done, now we know what the next games are going to be about, and that’s when the wins really matter.”
The WNBL Breakout Player of the Year is heading into the contest on a high after her magical moment on Monday night, at the league’s awards presentation.
“It was an honour to be nominated and to win yeah I was definitely shocked. I surprised myself I was coming in with no expectations and I think each game was a learning experience and I learned every day. Kind of once I’d got that confidence and my feet under me after a couple of games, I was ready to go.”
You can catch tonights game on KAYO,ESPN and 9now and 9GO at 7pm QLD time
Game 2 of the semi final series is in Townsville on Wednesday night. While tickets are selling fast they’re still available to purchase HERE
