"Proud" Phoenix celebrate gutsy win

Friday, January 26, 2024

Mitch Creek and Mike Kelly have praised the Phoenix's rotation and development players in a famous win.

The South East Melbourne Phoenix just pulled off a win with five of their most important players sidelined through injury.

Alan Williams, Gary Browne, Matt Kenyon and Craig Moller were all absent for last night’s victory over the Sydney Kings, while import forward Abdel Nader suited up but didn’t hit the court. Instead it was rotation and development players like Owen Foxwell, Kody Stattmann and Luke Rosendale who stepped up in the unlikely win.

Foxwell has long been the darling of Phoenix basketball, and he put in a career-best performance of 12 points, five rebounds and six assists, while Stattmann started the game and had 16 points and six rebounds of his own in a career-best performance.

Fellow development players Rosendale (eight points, 3/4 shooting), Austin Rapp and Anzac Rissetto all saw the floor, and Ben Ayre dropped 23 points in the win – all of which came as the side rallied behind Mitch Creek’s 31 points and 12 rebounds.

Creek expressed his pride in the side’s role players following the victory.

“Stattmann, Ben Ayre, Foxwell, Rosendale, ‘Zetto’ (Risetto), this is so huge for those guys and it’s so amazing,” Creek said.

“I’m so proud and I’m so emotional right now because they put in so much work and they don’t get all the rewards. This is the reward they get, and to hear this is everything right now.

“They deserve opportunities, they deserve to be in this league and as a leader you want to give them a platform to showcase who they are, personality wise, as an athlete, as a basketballer, as a human being.

“I couldn’t be more proud right now. I want to give them a big hug and a kiss.”

For all of the Phoenix’s absences, only Nader’s status was decided on game day. Moller and Williams had already been sidelined for the remainder of the season, while Kenyon and Browne were ruled out in advance.

This saw coach Mike Kelly elect to run with a starting five of backup guards Ayre and Reuben Te Rangi, development player Stattmann, Creek, and Gorjok Gak.

Kelly says the ability to focus on who was playing rather than who wasn’t allowed the side to play more single-mindedly than recent weeks.

“It’s been kind of an up and down week with knowing and not knowing. ‘Kenny’ (Kenyon) trained yesterday but couldn’t really get through it, and so I just put my focus on these guys and how we were going to play with these guys,” Kelly said post-game.

“For me that was kind of freeing, because once I slotted in Kody started at the three I knew how we wanted to play with Reuben at the two and Ben Ayre at the point.

“I think first of all the players did such a phenomenal job in being single-minded in how they went about playing, it was great belief by the players and the group as a whole, and it shows what can happen when you have that self-belief.

“Mitch Creek has led this team the last few weeks through the downs and the downs, and a couple of ups, and he was phenomenal again today and he got to see some payoff because a bunch of guys came with him. It was super fun to watch.

“We’ll focus on who we have, I’m hopeful guys will come back but I have no idea until we see them at our little workout in the morning.”