Vickerman crafting franchise best defensive season

Known league-wide as an elite defensive tactician, Melbourne United Head Coach Dean Vickerman is in the midst of leading the defending champions towards their best defensive season of all time.

United have been on a tear defensively, ranking first in defensive rating, a statistic that determines how many points a team allows per 100 possessions.

Through the first 15 games of the season Melbourne’s defensive rating is a staggering 97.3, the lowest in franchise history.

This combined with allowing the lowest opponent field goal percentage in NBL history has United sitting on top of the competition ladder.

Speaking ahead of Melbourne’s game against Cairns, Dean heaped praise on the new additions to the team for NBL22 for the defensive improvement.

“We try to get as many two-way players as possible.

“When you look at what we added this year, certainly at the guard spot with Dellavedova and Caleb Agada to start with, who are pretty high on defensive rankings individually right now. Then you add Jack White back into the line-up, Ariel Hukporti in the bigs… those four guys are extremely elite defenders.

“Add that to our system and what we had last year, it’s nice to see that we’ve gone another level with our defence.”

White, who has played a major role in United's terrific defence, built upon his coach's comments, adding while United may be great, they can always get better.

“It’s something we’ve recognised as a strength of ours, it’s an area in which we can really excel, especially with the depth that we have, I really feel like we can maintain that sort of pressure for the majority of the game. 

“We take a lot of pride in our defence, it’s something we emphasise every day, we understand it’s a strength, but it's something that we can continue to improve on.”

Tune in United’s next game against Cairns, who are the only other team in the league alongside United to not have allowed more than 95 points to be scored against them, on Sunday afternoon for free on 10 Peach and Kayo Freebies.

Following this, Melbourne United will return to John Cain Arena wearing their NBL22 Indigenous Jersey in a pair of home games against the Brisbane Bullets on Saturday 5 March, and then again on Thursday 10 March against the Perth Wildcats.

Tickets are on sale for both games here, while three and five game memberships for United’s seven remaining home games are available here.