The Motivation Behind Phoenix’s “Unfinished Business”

South East Melbourne Phoenix coach Simon Mitchell has revealed he will use game two and three of last season’s semi-final series as motivation for the club’s “unfinished business” in NBL22.

The Phoenix fell to rival Melbourne United in the semi-finals, losing 84-74 in the decisive game three. It followed a resounding 90-79 game two victory by South East Melbourne in what was their most impressive performance of the campaign.

Speaking on The Huddle, Mitchell explained how he plans on using those two games to inspire the group heading into the new season. 

“I haven't gone through the film of game three yet,” Mitchell said.

“I've watched patches of it and it's really just through doing individual stuff, but not the game from start to finish, I want to save it. When we get our full crew here, I want to watch it together with the team.

“I also want to watch game two with the team because I think there was a level of intensity that we played at…I felt like it was the first time we were at a level that we need to be at to be a championship calibre team.

“I want to share those moments with the team, so I've held off on really going through those games to this point.”

Mitchell believes the Phoenix needs to take lessons from those two games to take care of their unfinished business.

“I know that we've reached a level as a club that we need to build on, we need to bottle and harness, and that's got to be the baseline for us moving forward,” Mitchell said.

“We've talked about that this week as a group, and I think there was a general consensus amongst the returning players that it was a bit of unfinished business for us.”

South East Melbourne has one roster spot remaining and Mitchell said they’re “close” to signing that final piece.

“We're excited and hopefully we'll have something real soon,” he said.

The Phoenix enter NBL22 with a roster of Kyle Adnam, Ryan Broekhoff, Mitch Creek, Cam Gliddon, Izayah Le’afa, Xavier Munford, Dane Pineau, Zhou Qi, Tohi Smith-Milner and Reuben Te Rangi.

South East Melbourne tip-off their season on December 4 against the Illawarra Hawks at 5:30pm AEDT at John Cain Arena. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN and Kayo.