D-Mac Shares his Pre-Finals Thoughts
Interview by Hoopcity Magazine (www.msfbasketball.com)
20th February 2008

Hoopcity Magazine: How have you enjoyed this season so far? Do you believe you guys can take the title?

D-Mac: It’s been okay, it hasn’t been great. It’s been a bit up and down, but in saying that were still in 2nd. We started off alright, we won 9 games straight, and I was trying to tell our guys "listen man, we haven’t played none of the better teams, let’s not get too cocky about it.” Then we ran into Sydney, lost. Then after that we went to Townsville, we had just beaten them the week before, they beat us by 20. Then went to Perth, not ready to play, lost by 20. Then played Sydney again, and lost to them.

So it wasn’t a happy camp, as the season went on I think we’ve turned things around. We’ve brought in a new import, Sean Lampley, he’s pretty tough. We got DT (Dave Thomas) back, and like I said, it’s been up and down. But I still think we have a chance to do it. When you look around the league, we haven’t beaten Sydney or Brisbane, but I think we’re pretty close. With Sean just coming in and learning what we do, and we still got our core guys from the last 2 years, we got something there, it's just a mater of putting it together. It’s one thing about finals, man, you wanna be playing good ball, you gotta be ready to play. If not, then you gonna get bumped pretty quickly. But when I look at our team, I think we got a pretty good shot to get it done.

Hoopcity Magazine: How is the team chemistry you guys have right now compared to the season when you guys won the championship?

D-Mac: It’s not the same, ‘cause I think, in all due respect, that year you had a lot of guys out to prove themselves. I’ll start with myself; the two years before I was coming off the bench, then I started. Stephen Hoare & DT were there but our team didn’t do really with what we had. Then Rashad Tucker was also coming off the bench, he wasn’t playing a lot, and then you bring the big fella back (Chris Anstey). We all went into that season with a bit of a chip, you know what I mean, it was something personal with all of us. I’d tell Al Westover, “listen man, we got something here.” And we all took it on board and that was it. It was more like “Forget everybody else in the league, it’s gonna be us, and this how we gonna do it.” Once Al got that job, from day one he put in how he wanted us to play in the preseason, then we ended up winning the NBL Blitz, and it just went from there.

Last year was a bit tough, ‘cause Chris got injured playing with the Boomers. He came in pre-season, he wasn’t really full strength so at the start of the season he struggled a bit. What you get from him, if you’re not getting that then you’re gonna struggle. He felt like he was letting us down, but as the year went on, I think we got better, we just ran into a bus, Brisbane was absolutely on fire. And when you got that kind of momentum going it’s gonna to be tough to beat, and that’s why we lost to them.

And this years chemistry is a little bit different, we still got most of the same guys, we added Dave Barlow & Marint Muursepp, We started off good to go 9-0, but after we lost 4 in a row things changed. We got a new import (Sean Lampley), DT was slowly coming back off his injury, my roll changed - I started coming off the bench. The good thing about the start of the season was Anstey came in with a chip on his shoulder 'cause of last year, and that’s why he’s been so dominant this year. And I’m gonna say it, we gonna ride him till we win this thing, we gonna get on his back and we gonna ride him. (smiles) Even with the players we got, we got some guys that can go and get it done, but I don’t think we’re going nowhere, unless we got him.

Hoopcity Magazine: The Steal Record. What’s it mean to you to be the all-time NBL leader in steals?

D-Mac: It means a fair bit. I mean, I guess with milestones, people look at them as though you’ve been around for a long time. But it’s always something I’ve done, like I’ve led the league in steals for about 10 years. I’ve never really looked at how much I needed or what the record was until I seen it in the paper, and when it came up, me and my girl [Tanya] talked, and she’s like “You need to get that record”. But now, you know, what more can I say, it’s just an honour. I’ll take it. It’s pretty big actually, as much as I might sound modest; it’s pretty nice to have. (smiles)

Hoopcity Magazine: Have you spoken to Leroy Loggins about passing his record?
D-Mac: I haven’t talked to him yet. I knew I was behind him, but I never really talked to him about it. I think once he knows, he ain’t gonna be too happy. (smiles)

interview by Hoopcity Magazine.
Hoopcity is a new basketball magazine coming out in Australia in March 2008. Issue 1 will feature the full interview with Darryl McDonald. For more information visit www.msfbasketball.com