BRENDON EGAN

The Canterbury Rams are vowing a much-improved defensive showing against the Super City Rangers at Cowles Stadium tomorrow after leaking 211 points in two games last weekend.

Rams coach Dave Harrison said his side were embarrassed by their defence in last Sunday’s National Basketball League clash with the Rangers in Auckland. Canterbury gave up 112 points in the loss and were outscored by a whopping 70-42 margin in the second and third quarters.

Defence also let the Rams down against Taranaki, a day earlier, giving up too many easy baskets in their 99-92 loss in New Plymouth.

At the beginning of the season, the Rams talked about being a defence-first side who would look to capitalise from opposition turnovers and missed shots.

Harrison said Thursday night’s training session had been the most intense of the season and expected his side to come out fired up. The Rams players felt like they had let themselves down on defence last week and were eager to atone.

“That has been the feeling this week amongst the team. They feel that’s not acceptable and they don’t accept it,” Harrison said.

“We do [defend well] in patches, but we don’t do it for long enough periods during a game. When things don’t start to go very well for us, we tend to drop our intensity at the defensive end.”

Bottom of the table Canterbury are yet to win a game at Cowles Stadium in their comeback season. The team was desperate to reward their home fans and all the people who had worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get the Rams back into the NBL.

“It’s something the players are aware of,” Harrison said.

“They haven’t played their best basketball at Cowles. They’re pretty determined they’re going to repay some of the support.”

If Canterbury want to claim just their second win of the season, they must shut down Super City’s Australian backcourt of Daryl Corletto and Jason Cadee, who combined for 56 points last Sunday. The Rams allowed the duo to get into their shooting rhythm and they hurt them badly, hitting 10 three-pointers between them.

New Zealand Breakers squad member Duane Bailey was also a menace with 23 points and 10 rebounds in the win.

Canterbury have been poor in the second quarter this season, being outscored in nine of their 10 games – often after holding a first quarter lead. They are only averaging 17 points in the second quarter, while conceding 26.

The Rams have tried everything to solve the problem, mixing up their lineup and switching around their defence. Harrison said it came down to believing in their systems.

“We’ve got to work together and fight through those tough periods as a team. We need to move the ball on offence and lock down and play defence.”

Rams reserve guard Joel Stratford will miss the game with an eye injury, which sees academy player James Cawthorn come into the gameday 12 for the first time. Starter Ethan Rusbatch has not trained this week after rolling his ankle in the closing stages of last Sunday’s game. Harrison was “pretty confident” he would play.

– The Press

www.thepress.co.nz/