Creek Embracing Play-in Opportunity

The final game of the regular season came down to the last four seconds, as South East Melbourne Phoenix players, coaches, staff, and fans were glued to their TVs on Sunday to see if they were going to play Melbourne United or Perth Wildcats in the Play-in Qualifier this Thursday night.

The Wildcats needed to win by 11+ points to push United out of the six. It came down to four seconds with the ball in Sydney Kings hands, the Wildcats held on to win by 12 points and clinched the 6th position.

And the Phoenix finally found out after a week of waiting, they would finish the regular season on 5th and host the Wildcats.

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(Phoenix will take on the Wildcats in Thursday's Play-In Qualifier.)

Co-captain Mitch Creek sat in suspence as he watched the dying minutes of the Perth game.

“I was on the edge of my seat with some friends and family. First and foremost, Melbourne United did their job; they did a great effort with Tucker making that three ball to extend that point differential margin,” he told SEN earlier today.

“You are thinking this is going to be a tough one for Perth, could be close, could go either way. Then all of a sudden, they are up by 20, and you are like, this is a sure thing. And then, with two minutes to go, Dejan Vasiljevic just goes absolutely bonkers, gets that little assassin grin, and starts hitting a few shots. He gets it back under ten, and I was like, ‘Well, I guess it’s Melbourne United’.

“Then it was Perth again, then United and then Perth. Oh, it was a roller-coaster of emotions for those teams. Just being a fan of the game, just watching those teams, I know United would be at home pulling their hair out. It was an incredible round of basketball, hats off to Perth for how they fought and came back to get that margin, just over that 11 points they needed to go through,” he recounts.

No matter who ended up taking the 6th spot on the ladder, Creek was happy to play either team, with his complete trust behind his team, who have a win/loss record of 12-3 at home this season.

“We are happy to play anyone, anywhere. Our road schedule this year hasn’t favoured us too well, but our home win/loss record with a full team has been very strong, so we feel confident going into this one as you do with any game, but it was a flip of the coin who we were going to play, we didn’t mind, we were just sitting there enjoying the show with this weekend off,” Creek said.

With no game in round 18, it was business as usual for the Phoenix as they worked to keep the momentum going before playing their first game in 11 days.

“We’ve been training all last week, and we played a lot of game scenarios stuff because, obviously, we missed this weekend’s games. It’s a tough one because, obviously, having a ten-day break can help you with rest and with Rowdy, with his slight injury, is going to be close to being back. But also, you want to stay in rhythm, and you want to keep playing,” he said.

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Creek explained how he and the team are treating this Thursday night’s game like any other game the team has played during the season, but also taking in and embracing this opportunity to play finals basketball.

“I believe if you approach every game the same way, and that’s how I do it, you don’t put too much emphasis on this is a big one, this is where it all counts, if we don’t win this one, that’s just putting unnecessary pressure on yourself, and I trust the work I’ve done, I trust the work my teammates and the staff at our club have put in. No game is going to be any different to this one.

“I’m excited; I know everyone else is excited. Suppose there are any nerves in some other guys. In that case, it’ll be a quick huddle to say, ‘we’ve got that out of us, let’s go play basketball, this is who we are, we know we deserve to be here, that’s why we were in a commanding position at the end of the season, we trust each other, let’s just go out and play winning basketball and do the little things for each other.’ It’s about the people who lead the club going out and saying it’s okay, this is how you do it; lead by example.”

(Phoenix will play their home play-in final for the first time in Melbourne in front of the Phoenix fans.)

Phoenix will play the Wildcats on Thursday, February 9th, at 6:30pm in the play-in qualifier at John Cain Arena. CLICK HERE to secure your seat to Phoenix’s home play-in qualifier for the first time in front of Phoenix fans.

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Phoenix Media (06/02/23)