Bay Area head coach Brian Goorjian is looking at some adjustments for his team in the next four games as 6-foot-10 import Andrew Nicholson takes his turn as the Dragons reinforcement in lieu of prolific guard Myles Powell.
Goorjian is seeing a shift in point of attack for the Dragons who, in the first four games, leaned on the outside shooting and shot creation of Powell as they hope to make use of Nicholson who is more known as an inside operator.
“He's an interior player, so offensively, we'll be throwing inside a little bit more than we have and then I just think again with our team, it also put a lot of pressure without Myles, on our frontline, on our bigs, now, players like Kobe Lang and some of this bench guys, they're gonna become much more important when you take a guard of Myles ability out of it,” said Goorjian.
Powell had been the focal point of the Dragons assault, averaging 35.7 points and eight rebounds including at least four three pointers per contest, steering Bay Area to the top spot of the standings with a 4-0 record.
With Nicholson in though, a lot are suddenly expected from the Bay Area guards led by Kobe Lam, Glen Yang and Songwei Zhu to still provide the outside threat and create more space for their big men to operate inside the paint.
“So, for us to win, we're gonna need performance out of our players that we haven't depended on with having (Andrew) here. So it's a good challenge for us and a good opportunity,” added Goorjian.
Not backing down to the challenge was Yang who already stepped up for Bay Area in their 106-100 victory over Converge on Friday, Oct. 7. He finished with 23 points, 11 rebounds and five assists including key baskets down the stretch that allowed the Dragons to survive a huge fourth quarter storm from the FiberXers.
“Again, we're trying to bleed his guys and get ready for EASL so our guards now, we're gonna get a good look,” said Goorjian.