Mitchell: 'We Want to Be Different'

By Dan Woods - NBL Media

After a fourth place finish in NBL21 expectations on the South East Melbourne Phoenix were high heading into last season.

Their exciting, fast-paced offence had seen them lock in a playoff spot and ahead of NBL22 they were expected to shift from playoff hopefuls to genuine title challengers. That’s not what happened.

Starting the season 11-6, the Phoenix capitulated in the back half of the season to finish sixth. Two wins in their final two games showed what they were capable of, but it was too little, too late.

Phoenix head coach Simon Mitchell says the club has locked in on what it needs to improve on to once again place themselves amongst the NBL’s top teams.

“We weren’t good enough … we always talked about just scratching the surface, [but] even when we were 11-6 we didn’t feel like we were firing on all cylinders,” Mitchell said on The Huddle.

“There were elements as the season progressed we were saying we were really going to hit it. We never got there, we didn’t get to it.

“We’ve got a list of seven or eight things we make sure we get to and we get better at … firstly we need to get better at communicating.

“That, to me, was the biggest flaw in our team and it hurt us defensively especially. Early in the season we were one of the better defensive teams and we dropped away really, really badly.

“I think our play after timeouts after offence or defence was poor, and again that comes down to communication, what’s being said at timeouts, what’s being said as guys walk back onto the floor, those are things we need to work on.”

A key element in the Phoenix’s drop in form was the loss of key signing Ryan Broekhoff to a season-ending shoulder injury.

Broekhoff stamped his authority on the early part of the season and, at the time of his injury, he was the team’s best rebounder and third top scorer.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">“???? ?? ???? ????????, ??????????’? ??????? ?????? ????!” ? <a href="https://twitter.com/RBroekhoff45?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RBroekhoff45</a><br><br>Rowdy is ready for NBL23 ?<br><br>? Memberships: <a href="https://t.co/783pVKLKP3">https://t.co/783pVKLKP3</a> <a href="https://t.co/tEsd8DmKCO">pic.twitter.com/tEsd8DmKCO</a></p>&mdash; South East Melbourne Phoenix (@SEMelbPhoenix) <a href="https://twitter.com/SEMelbPhoenix/status/1556850654312005632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Having had extensive NBA experience with the Dallas Mavericks, he became the team’s leader on defence. Mitchell says the absence of ‘Rowdy’ on the court was felt heavily by the rest of the side.

“Everyone knows our story of we lost Ryan Broekhoff. Yeah, we lose a great player, but I think the biggest impact it had was on our ability to communicate,” he said.

“‘Rowdy’ didn’t get his name for being the loudest bloke, but in our team he really is one of the great communicators and we lost that. We weren’t able to fill the void.

“Maybe there’s a different scenario if that (injury) doesn’t happen to 'Rowdy' – I think it’s safe to say we’d have been more successful, there’s a lot of close losses in there, [but] it [doesn’t] eradicate the underlying issues I felt we had as a team.”

Despite their struggles last season, Mitchell and the Phoenix have their sights set firmly on success, and have a desire to burst out of the shadows of Melbourne United.

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South East Melbourne’s fierce throwdown rivals have made the playoffs in every season of the Phoenix’s existence, and knocked them on route to the 2021 title.

“Success for us is competing for a championship. We keep our standards high,” Mitchell said.

“While we experienced some setbacks last year I don’t feel like they were of gargantuan size and nature. They were areas like ‘we learn from that, we tweak it, we get better’.

“We [don’t] want to be Melbourne United junior, or their poor cousin. No, let’s be something completely different.

“I think success for us is we’ve got our goals really, really high.”