King’s public blast gets a response from Phoenix

Josh King called out his South East Melbourne Phoenix in public on Wednesday night, after a third straight defeat at home to the Illawarra Hawks.

His message, to think more about the team and less about themselves, was likely nothing the players hadn’t already heard behind closed doors. Saying it publicly made it one they needed to heed.

It hadn’t sunk in by half-time of Saturday’s Throwdown, with the Phoenix trailing Melbourne United by 25 points. After the break, though, and with Nathan Sobey leading the way, King saw much more of the basketball he wants.

It still wasn’t a win, and the Phoenix remain last at 4-9.

King believes it was a genuine step forward, but he won’t know for sure until he sees how they start against the New Zealand Breakers in Auckland on Wednesday.

“Like, this is good and I think we feel good about the direction we went tonight, but we need to see how we come out on Wednesday night,” King said.

“If we play like this, we’ll give ourselves a chance to win and this was a positive sign for us.

“We had probably four or five things on our whiteboard that we really wanted to focus on, and one of them was leaving here feeling better about where we’re at.

“I think that’s a very positive outcome for us and the result we want will show sooner rather than later if we stick to playing this way.”

After the Hawks loss, King had singled out Dash Daniels and Tanner Krebs as two players whose effort he couldn’t fault. Add the way he has previously spoken about D’Shawn Schwartz and Yannis Morin, and it’s clear he likes how that group puts the team first.

Nobody else was spared, co-captain Sobey included. Coming off the best season of his 343-game career in NBL26, the star made a slow start to NBL27 with a back injury and has never quite got going since.

He did put up 33 points against the Sydney Kings last Sunday, but Saturday’s second half was the version King wants to see more of. Sobey scored 21 of his 23 points after the break, to go with 8 assists and 4 steals.

“Yeah, I just saw Sobes then and didn’t get to really talk to him after the game,” King said.

“I just saw him walking in the hallway here before I came in here, but that was maybe one of the best games that I’ve seen him play in quite some time, and on both sides of the ball.”

The Phoenix next face the Breakers in Auckland on Wednesday in an Ignite Cup fixture from 5.30pm AEDT.