Jeter: Defence vital against Bay Hawks

WARWICK SMITH/Manawatu Standard

LONG REACH: Manawatu Jets guard Richard Jeter wants the ball in his grasp at both ends on Saturday.

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Manawatu Jets guard Richard Jeter wants to lift his defence when the Jets host the Bay Hawks at Arena Manawatu tomorrow night.

The 1.98m American scored 29 points last weekend but wasn't happy with his overall performance in the opening-night loss to the Wellington Saints.

Jeter, 29, was white-hot in the second quarter last Saturday, when he scored 18 points to set the crowd alight, but he said his thoughts were now on the Hawks.

"Defence is all I'm focused on. Scoring will take care of itself.

"We've got a pretty good team that we will be facing on Saturday. They're coming off a pretty good win. They have a balanced team.

"We all need to take responsibility and play defence as a team."

The Jets were out-rebounded 44-37 by the Saints but played a large part of the game without any big men on court as coach Ryan Weisenberg tried to play an up-tempo offence.

"I only had four rebounds," Jeter said.

"I think our goal is to get as many as possible. Four rebounds isn't cutting it. There's no excuse."

Weisenberg said his team were soft on defence last week and needed to be dynamic tomorrow.

"I think we played very passive defence, which is not a characteristic of my coaching," he said.

"I don't know where it came from; like I told the guys, never in my life have I given up 100 points, let alone two weeks back to back, so it was really embarrassing.

"I'd rather they make an aggressive mistake than a passive mistake, because passive mistakes seem to keep mounting up."

The Jets don't have to cast their minds back far to when they were beaten 110-83 in the pre-season by the Hawks, when former Jet Jamil Terrell dominated the boards.

The Hawks are without star point guard Paul Henare and are coming off a tough trip to Invercargill, where they beat the Southland Sharks 105-90 in overtime.

American Ronald Allen hasn't recovered from his back problem and will sit out another game, which is a crushing blow for the Jets.

The 2.08m power forward has struggled after going down at training last week, and the doctor said yesterday he would not be fit for tomorrow's clash.

Jeter lacked scoring support last week from his team-mates, with co-captain Kaine Hokianga, 17, the only other player in double digits.

Players like Piers Finch, Hugh Quinlivan and Matt Te Huna need to weigh in with points to provide support.

Manawatu Jets: (from) Kaine Hokianga, Logan Funnell, Paul Bristol, Calum MacLeod, Callum Brock, Matt Te Huna, Piers Finch, Richard Jeter, Josh O'Connell, Adrian Torrie, Hugh Quinlivan, Riki Dalzell.

Bay Hawks: (from) Everard Bartlett, Miles Pearce, Nat Connell, Chris Daniel, Haylan Tahua, Ben Hill, George Golden, Jamil Terrell, David Langrell, Czebalos Smiler.

- © Fairfax NZ News