Tigers need to show their aggression, says co-captain
The Age
Saturday November 28, 2009
MARK Worthington hates losing. Despises it. But it is something with which he has become uncomfortably familiar this season, with the Melbourne Tigers rooted to the bottom of the National Basketball League table.Worthington never believed he would find himself in such a situation when he signed with the Tigers this season after the team that he lead to last year's championship, South Dragons, was among those that withdrew from the competition earlier this year.But, just past the midway point of the 20-round season, the Tigers, hit hard by injury, including to superstar leader Chris Anstey, are a shadow of the team that has played in the past four grand final series, winning two championships. And Worthington makes no secret that it is frustrating."There was no way I would have thought I'd be in this position, [but] it's just another challenge in life and a challenge in my basketball career and hopefully this will have a good ending to it," said Worthington, the Tigers' co-captain. "I hate losing, no question about that. It's super frustrating at the moment . . . I despise losing. I don't want to have a season where I'm not in the finals or don't have a chance to win the championship."It's one of those things where you get really frustrated the night after the game, but then you've got to get back on the horse and get back to work the next day and try and rectify why we are in this position."Worthington summed up the team's form, shown again with a 86-83 home loss to Cairns, as becoming an "annoying habit". "We've got a fairly angry and aggressive team personality-wise but for whatever reason we are not transferring that on to the court at the moment and I think we just need to play with a bit of a chip on our shoulder," he said.But, the forward does have a distraction to his frustration at present, with the birth last Saturday of his son Taz.The Australian Boomer said the season €” with the team's next game being next Saturday against Adelaide €” was still recoverable, even with the Tigers three wins behind the rest of the pack at 3-11."We need to get back to basics and have fun playing basketball again because at the moment it seems like everything is a bit of a chore for our team and when things become like that, basketball becomes a lot harder and it's quite an easy game if you know how to play it right," Worthington said."When you watch the game it looks as though everything is hard for us. Just running up and down the court, it looks as though we're stuck in mud half the time. Whether that's fitness issues or not, I don't know. We need to switch on to our A-game pretty soon or we'll have no reason to play for the rest of the season if we keep on losing."I thought we'd be right up there again, vying for a championship, and I still believe that we can, on the proviso that we do turn it around quickly . . . I still think we are incredibly talented. I just don't think we're directing our energy into the right areas at the moment. If we get back on track there's no team in this league that can beat us and I still firmly believe that."But, for whatever reason, we just haven't found the right answer yet to the problem that's in front of us but if we do, I don't think any team would want to run into a hot Tigers team coming into the play-offs because everyone knows how much depth and how much talent we've got on our team."TONIGHT: Perth v Gold Coast, Challenge Stadium, Perth (10pm, Melb time)
© 2009 The Age