"Like a flat tyre": Phoenix deflated, frustrated

Barely two months after being heralded as potential title fancies, the wheels are beginning to fall off for South East Melbourne.

The Phoenix’s 25-point defeat to Adelaide and 31-point loss to New Zealand relegated them to the bottom of the ladder – albeit in one of the closest NBL seasons in recent memory – as the 36ers and Breakers continued their respective fightbacks into the Finals picture.

South East Melbourne last won against Tasmania on Christmas Day, and has lost eight of its last nine games. Only one of those defeats has come by fewer than 15 points, and all have been in double-figures.

Their average losing margin during the current poor run of form has been over 25 points.

Club captain and star forward Mitch Creek has labelled the run as one of the toughest he's been involved in.

“It’s definitely one of the harder patches of my professional playing career,” Creek said following the loss to New Zealand.

“It’s almost like you have a flat tyre and you think you fix a few of the punctures, then you put it back on your bike, you get excited to get back out and go for a ride again and just like us between games you play a game and we feel a little deflated with how we play, we try to fix up some of the holes and you get all excited to play again and it’s like it all goes down again.

“I try and lead by example and do the right thing. Every day I go home, I do my recovery, I make sure I tick the boxes and I try to come in with good energy regardless of whatever is going on in my life.

“We need to be doing winning reps, we need to be in a championship mindset. We’re not in that by any means. You fix things, you’re trying to be as good as you can and as positive as you can, but we’re not playing up to a standard that is required to win NBL games and we have to be ale to review that really truthfully to ourselves.

“Everyone’s got a part to play, we’re trying our best – although for some people it doesn’t really look like it – we really are trying, we have a good group of guys, we haven’t splintered too much and we’ve actually stayed together quite well. As frustrating as it is it’s hard to translate a good group of guys into good basketball sometimes and we’re finding that right now. “

The Phoenix committed 19 turnovers against the Breakers and allowed their opponents to shoot 36 free throws across the defeat at the Spark Arena on Saturday night.

Head coach Mike Kelly says while he’s struggling to find positives from the side’s current run of form, fouls and turnovers are two crucial areas that need to be tightened up by his side.

“I’m definitely a glass half full type of guy, but I’m struggling,” Kelly said.

“I think you build confidence at times like this by doing things right, and then doing it again, doing it again, and doing it again. That’s what we’re trying to do in training and when we play.

“Guys fought but too many turnovers, fouls, which led to over half their points and you can’t do that against a good team. The Breakers came and gave us a good shot in the nose to start the game and it took us a little while to start playing.

“We’re trying to find the balance, and in the end guys need to make plays on offence, not foul on defence and not turn the ball over. It’s as simple as that.”

The Phoenix’s next opportunity to break their losing run will come on Thursday night against the Sydney Kings, live on ESPN via Kayo at 7:30pm AEDT.