Deep Roster Working for Phoenix

The depth of the South East Melbourne Phoenix’s roster is working for coach Simon Mitchell as he has praised his bench and development players.

The Phoenix finally has their full team healthy to take the court, with Mitchell possessing a strong mix of veterans and youngsters at his disposal.

Mitchell has been impressed with his bench players stepping up in key moments for the squad, who have improved to third on the ladder at 9-6.

Amongst the names of the Phoenix young guns delivering is Junior Madut, who has progressed nicely throughout the season.  Madut scored nine points in Thursday night’s win over Illawarra in his 19-minute stint.

“The first five games of the year where we had some injuries, there was some things we took away from the preseason and the start of the season that Owen Foxwell, Junior Madut, Grant (Anticevich) needed to go work on,” Mitchell said.

“Their growth as professional athletes that we’ve seen is rewarding. They were all on court, all things from a defensive standpoint that they needed experience.

“As the season’s worn on, especially at practice those guys are really starting to show the consistency there and we reward that consistency at practice.

“We’ve got a really deep scoring roster, particularly in our starting five and those guys don’t necessarily see the ball as much as we need them to, when they’re starting with other starters.

“When we start to get some more rotations, now we can start to look to give Trey Kell more touches, we can look to go inside to Sauce (Alan Williams) a bit more.”

Mitchell said the team starred in the second half in the win over the Hawks, adding it was one of the best periods of basketball played this season.

“There was some really poor play from us in the first half, I think there’s some lessons there for us as well,” Mitchell said.

“Defensively, there was some really poor play from us in the first half and then we locked down.

“One of the best performances any team’s done this year in the second half.”

Phoenix veteran Ryan Broekhoff played one of his best games of the season with 21 points and seven rebounds.

“I felt pretty good, I feel like I’m moving around after obviously having a pretty interrupted season,” Broekhoff said.

Agreeing with Mitchell on the roster depth, Broekhoff said: “I think we have so many weapons.

“Some nights it’s my turn to get some shots, some nights it’s other guys, we spread the load really well.

“We feel like we’re really good when we’re on, but we just have to have that consistency each and every game.”

South East Melbourne host the Adelaide 36ers on Sunday at 2:00pm AEDT.