By Adam Manning
CRUSADERS forward Dave Edden says his team mates were left frustrated
following the 64-89 home league defeat to Taunton Tigers on Saturday as
they slipped four points off a play-off spot going into Sunday’s game at
London Mets.
Edden tried to rally his side in the second quarter as his eight point
contribution in the space of a couple of minutes put Crusaders 28-27 up
after a slow first quarter, which despite restricting Taunton to three
point shots, still earned them nine points from a Chris Page double and
three from Kevin Anderson to leave Crusaders trailing by six at the end
of the opening quarter.
Crusaders then let a five point lead slip two minutes before half-time
before Tigers ran away with the score line in the second half with a
scoring tally of 53 to Coventry’s 30.
Reflecting on his team’s fading play-off hopes after the game on
Saturday, Edden insisted: “We’re going to give it our best and we’re not
going to give up”.
“The Taunton game was a game that we needed to win. It was an important
game for us, and now if we don’t win against London Mets then the
play-offs are going to even further away”.
As for Saturday’s game itself, Edden conceded it was a poor performance
in a match that held much importance for Neely’s side as six out of
their remaining eight games are away from home, with the side yet to win
on the road at eight attempts.
“I don’t think anyone got hot at one point, and our defence was allowing
them easy lay-ups” he said.
“We had a really good start to the second quarter and I think we got it
back to within two points at half-time, and we came out in the third
like we did last week and our heads weren’t switched on”.
“We did talk about it and said ‘let’s be ready’ but when we got on the
court it just didn’t happen. Even myself, no-one was wary of little
passes and they were getting lay up after lay up. We lost by 25 points
and they’re not 25 points better than us.”
Following this weekend the Crusaders have a two week break where they
will be training away from the Grace Academy to prepare for their big
home game against Manchester Magic on 27th February, and
Edden says the break is a welcome one:
“We need a break to get some more practices in. We
weren’t ready for the game against Taunton clearly, so the longer
the better. I think a team
needs more than two practices a week, but that’s what we’re given,
it’s not an excuse but it would help if we had more”.
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