Vickerman: 'White must be aggressive'

Melbourne United coach Dean Vickerman says his side needs more from star big Jack White, who failed to put up a shot on Wednesday night.

White played more than 17 minutes, but only managed six rebounds to go with four fouls, in a tough night at the office.

“We need him to be more aggressive than not shooting a shot tonight,” Vickerman said following Melbourne’s 102-100 defeat at the hands of Illawarra.

Lanard Copeland echoed Vickerman’s thoughts.

“They need Jack White to be as aggressive as possible,” he said on NBL Now.

“Even though he’s missing free throws, get to the basket, dunk on someone, get some threes.”

“We’ll put some positive messages to him and tell him to continue to be aggressive, and down the stretch I thought he rebounded well,” Vickerman continued.

“That was the part of him that he can really help us with as well and hopefully his rebounding can ignite some pace for us, and the confidence for him to go ahead and be super aggressive.”

White was a consistent performer during the Playoff Series against Perth, despite his struggles from the free-throw line, with his three-point shooting a feature.

But he managed just nine points in Game 1 against Illawarra and noticeably struggled in the return leg.

“We need him and we saw that against Perth after Game 2 when we needed him, and he turned up for that Game 3. I’m confident that he’ll be super aggressive going forward,” Vickerman added.

Pete Hooley backed White to bounce back.

“We see from Jack White he’s a 20 and 10 player, at his very best he’s trying to put heat on the rim, he’s knocking down the three ball.

“There’s no difference in going zero-for-zero of zero-for-ten, in the end you still didn’t score, so you’ve at least got to try and be aggressive and try and put some in.”

The United star has averaged 13.2 points and 9.2 rebounds a game across NBL25.