Goorjian works magic on Souths Dragons

Brian Goorjian is already working his magic on last season's NBL wooden spoon holder South Dragons, with the surging Victorian club winning two road games in three days. South (4-2) won only one away game last season, but they've triumphed in three of their four interstate assignments in the new campaign under Goorjian, the most
successful coach in NBL history.

The Dragons scored a 107-90 win over Gold Coast (0-4) on Thursday and followed up
with a 114-95 conquest of the Hawks (1-3) in Wollongong.
"It was an emotional win on the Gold Coast and to back it up was fantastic,"
Goorjian said.
"I thought we were great at the defensive end of the floor all weekend and got
consistency from all the players."
Goorjian continued to bring high-scoring import guard Cortez Groves off the bench
with success, with the American scoring 17 against the Blaze and a team-leading 25
against Wollongong.
The five-time NBL championship coach said he was following a similar procedure to
that of last season with Sydney, when imports Dontaye Draper and Isiah Victor were
both highly effective off the bench.
Goorjian spent limited time with the Dragons in the pre-season due to his Olympic
commitments and that combined with the youthfulness of his group made him believe
they could get significantly better.
"We've got huge room for growth and I'm expecting a big improvement, just naturally
because of the youth," Goorjian said.
The Dragons are fourth on the ladder after three rounds, behind New Zealand (3-0)
and Melbourne and Townsville (both 3-1).
The Breakers maintained their hot start to the season with a 118-80 thrashing of
Adelaide (2-2) in Auckland.
It was record winning margin for the Breakers, who had seven double digit scorers,
headed by a 34-point haul from guard Kirk Penney.
"It's been a pleasing way to start the season to go 3-0. It helps with confidence,
but we've still got a lot of areas for improvement," Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis
said.
"From a defensive transition point of view we are better than we have been, but I
think we can get better in that area.
"I thought we were a little sloppy on the offensive end and we didn't execute as
well as we had previously."
The Breakers' next opponents are Cairns (2-2), who lost 101-77 at home to Melbourne
for whom Ebi Ere top-scored with 24.
Townsville guard Kelvin Robertson celebrated his 200th NBL game with a match-high 27
in the 97-80 home victory over Perth (2-3).
It was a mixed round for the Wildcats who had previously scored a 105-92 home
victory over Wollongong.