WNBL: Perth spirit away hopes as Lightning fly
TweetON the one hand, it rarely pays to celebrate prematurely as the Spirit were reminded by Perth and on the other, it's "welcome to the WNBL" to Scott Ninnis as coach of an Adelaide Lightning which lost import playmaker Japreece Dean to a broken finger but still held off Southside in his coaching debut.
Ninnis, who won myriad championships as a player in the NBL, SEABL and NBL1, then as an assistant coach at NBL, three as a head coach at NBL1 level, before head coaching twice in the NBL, only dipped his toe into WNBL coaching as an assistant back in 2007.
To score a win over the defending champion Flyers after losing Dean a mere 7:56 into the contest - by which point she had three points and four assists - was a blow which led to Haylee Andrews and Brooke Basham stepping up.
It was a great start to his WNBL coaching career in which he drew a near triple-double from Steph Talbot (17 points, 10 rebounds, 7 assists) , a further 18 points at 61 per cent from Izzy Bourne and an 18-12 points-boards double from Brianna Turner.
The "play of the game" and maybe yet of the round, was a late third quarter sideball inbounds in which Andrews lobbed a pass to Talbot for a mid-air catch-and-shoot to beat the shot-clock.
While Lightning resembled the potential many believed it had at season's start, it's something of a misnomer to describe this Southside line-up rookie coach Kristi Harrower inherited as the "defending champion".
Technically it is, but with players of the calibre of Lauren Jackson, Mercedes Russell and Nyadiew Puoch gone, Carley Ernst injured, it is Harrower's recruits Naz Hillmon, Alice Kunek and Tera Reed who have stood out.
Bendigo also has stood out as unquestionably the team to beat this season, carving out an undefeated 9-0 start which included lowering the Lynx's colours in Perth.
But when articles such as this start to appear, implying the prospect of an undefeated season, you know people are getting ahead of themselves.
And when they start looking at the "bigger picture" instead of what's in front of them, it sure is easy to stumble.
You tend to overlook that maybe Perth was not at full strength in that first meeting, that maybe an Alex Wilson might be up for this revisit to her former stomping ground. Maybe, just maybe, you start to believe your own hype and invincibility at home, especially against a rival you've already beaten on the road.
In the words of Julia Roberts' character Vivian in Pretty Woman, "big mistake, big, huge."
Perth's 71-68 win over the Spirit, with Wilson's 20 points leading all scorers and the 3x3 Olympian huge down the stretch, strongly suggests Kennedy Kereama's championship-bound crew won't fall into the same trap again anytime soon.
BACK WHERE HE BELONGS: Scott Ninnis setting new standards for Adelaide Lightning.