Roth defends Crawford shooting slump

For the Tasmania JackJumpers, the NBL24 Championship Series started on a somewhat forgettable note. They suffered a 23-point defeat in the opening game of their five-game campaign against Melbourne United, which included a final quarter in which they were outscored by 10 points.

Four of Tasmania’s five starters ended the game in double figures for scoring, however an inability to take advantage of the three-ball or earn uncontested looks saw the JackJumpers end the game having hit just 39 per cent of their shot attempts.

Jordon Crawford and Sean Macdonald were the biggest strugglers in a game that was begging for one of Tasmania’s stars to step up, and shot a combined 6-24 on the night.

Head coach Scott Roth says the discussion around Crawford’s poor shooting run could stop as quickly as it started.

“I think people are trying to crucify the kid because he wasn’t shooting the ball at some kind of percentage or not, but it is what it is,” Roth said post-game.

“This is not a one-man show, and if a guy has a bad shooting night he has a bad shooting night in a big game.

“There’s no one person on this team we need to get up and running. This is a collective group that has played together for the last three years – most of these guys together – and the guys we sprinkled in.

“Like anything else this is a little of a chess match in seeing what they’re doing, and we have to adjust to, and vice-versa. You just kind of go through that and the players make their adjustments and see how they’re being guarded over the course of the time, the video work and stuff we’ll be moving forward with to help them try to take advantage of some things will be good.”

Club captain Clint Steindl added his side needed to keep the ball moving on offence if they wanted to continue to trouble United.

“We still have to keep the ball hot, we have to maximise that shot clock at our end of the floor, and we’ve shown over the course of the season that when that ball’s hot that’s how we control the tempo of the game,” Steindl said.

“Teams try and take us out of that and we continue to find ways to be productive in that area, so it’s back to the drawing board to find other ways to keep the ball moving and make them play that full shot clock.

“You can look at our assist number being 13, you guys are talking about if we can get more shots for different guys, but essentially they (United) were able to push us out of what we wanted to do.

“We’re good when the ball moves, and obviously we didn’t hit a couple. Those two factors are probably reflective of that assist number, but we did take care of the ball – seven turnovers – but it was the course of 40 minutes and what they were doing.”

Star center Will Magnay continued his run of starts following Marcus Lee’s suspension for Game 2 of the Playoff Series win over Perth, however he managed just 13 minutes on court due to foul trouble.

He was at his destructive best in his time on court with 10 points and five rebounds, before Fabijan Krslovic was preferred to Lee when Magnay was pulled to the bench due to his foul trouble.

Lee looked to have grabbed at his previously injured shoulder during the game, but Roth said the decision to play Krslovic over the import was purely tactical.

“Marucs I just didn’t play – I thought his shoulder was fine, I just didn’t play him,” Roth said.

“I felt like Fab was doing a much better job defensively around the box and being a bit more scrappy at times, and with Mags being in foul trouble I think Fab needed to get some minutes under his belt.

“I’ve used those guys multiple ways during the course of the season and I’m quite confident in all three of them.”

Game 2 of the Championship Series matchup between Tasmania and Melbourne will tip off on Friday night at 7:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo.