I hope a potential Southside-Melbourne semi final series is more competitive (and entertaining!) than their regular season series. Really poor effort from Melbourne in a key game and home advantage in the semis goes down the drain. Wallace and T Mitchell need to refocus a bit - their play recently has been a bit out of control. How much can L Mitchell help? She's not going to be magically match fit in a couple of weeks.

Fun fact - Puoch is Southside's leader in blocked shots this season. Not that their bigs have hops to speak of lol.

Southside clearly have the wood over Melbourne this season.

Townsville are literally on fire at the top; the only question nos is whether Perth can replace Bendigo in the top 4? Massive game on Saturday night between the two. Perth finish the season with a game vs the Caps, while Bendigo have to face a red-hot Townsville.

Does anybody know if Izzy Borlase is back this week? Want to take the kids to go watch her, but without her and Talbot, not so keen.

Southside are sailing and look a cohesive side in all areas, Coach Chambers has done a great job, they play better without LJ and the hype, Boomers look ( and apparently are) in disarray, Wallace has a fabulous jump shit , prob the best in the league and good foot speed, but she's no point guard and has a lot of maturing to do in her attitude
Boomers have been trying to get a good PG ball handler floor general all season, now in a last bid effort they have brought in Mitchel under the "injury replacement “ clause.
Lei is a great player but she’s just had a baby , done no prep work and they expect her to be match fit to run a team( they have plenty of legs that can give a few mins break to Wallace so they clearly are wanting Mitchell to take to point position for the final leg)
Now imagine if you were Wallace, being replaced wouldn’t sit well, nor would it with Goodchild and Ortlepp, let alone the likes of Brewster who just keeps getting pushed to the end
Team chemistry is clearly not working and from all accounts it’s a bit of a sh$t show at the boomers camp
Lucas was not the right choice for this team at all , add in Harrower who whilst was a good player, she’s not a good coach , it’s surprising they have got this far really

Once the ball is tossed up, talent goes a long way to overcoming whatever else might be happening off the court.
It's no surprise at all to me that they have won a lot of games.

Boomers have 4 WNBA players, 2 of which are Opals team members plus a Kiwi international. Good coaching or not, it's a great starting point.

Quite an odd but entertaining game tonight. Foul count 21-10... And two very soft fouls to take Burrell and Pizzey out of the game. Jade just two rebounds away from consecutive triple doubles, and was the defensive matchup on Cayla when the Caps were down to five players.

Interesting load management for Melb. Nelson-Ododa was very disruptive on defence but sat for most of the second half.

'Resting' Wallace does not make the optics of Ortlepp, no Mitchell, as the Madgen replacement....

Good game from swain pre-draft

The Boomers should have beaten a Canberra team with no interior defence after Munger went out by more than 8 points. They couldn't stop Canberra's dribble penetration and the turnovers continued to flow, even with Wallace out. They're definitely first round fodder for Townsville or Southside at this rate.

Jade Melbourne is so much fun to watch at the moment. She could have had 16-17 assists if her teammates were a little better at finishing. She would have had a better scoring second half if she didn't tweak her ankle *and* have to guard Cayla George some of the time. Good to see Swain have an on game and Calleia have a career game off the bench.

It was so hard to watch Jade having to pick up the five on defence and then run the point on offence!

You can certainly see a massive improvement in the team from round 1 and massive amounts of heart and effort. All of which is a credit to the players and coaching staff.

Caps were great tonight but missed too many bunnies, could've snuck a win here for sure.
2nd game is good too, Lavey keeping Spirit in it. Alabakov talking too much as per usual

I wish the Perth-Bendigo game was a bit more competitive but Perth's offence is great to watch when on so not too many complaints here. Bendigo's defence let them down again which is interesting because they have some good defenders on the roster. I think not having a good defensive 4/5 hurts their team defence, which is something all the other contenders have. Also, is Kereama a problem here? I honestly do not recall whether he is considered a good defensive coach.

Congratz to Perth, should make top 4 now.
Bendigo fell apart late in the season, griffin out too long and Maley hasn't looked herself for the last 5-6 games, focus must be elsewhere.

How attractive was the late first quarter/second quarter offense from the Caps? Threw out the idea of the 8 second offense, and went with a four second offense. Congrats to Kristen Veal- I thought the Caps were going to lose every game this year by 30 after round 1. She managed to fit her tactics to her personnel. Only lost last night because the opponent lifted, and they ran out of players.

And anyone not watching the WNBL because it is women playing isn't a basketball lover. This season has been amazing in all sorts of ways. All four teams last night (yes even Bendigo- remember the first four minutes of the fourth quarter) showed how great the future of women's basketball is.

Hear hear Mike 14

Hawkins, boom. Game winner.

Flames very unlucky, 1.4 seconds left and Townsville win it.

Exciting and entertaining end to the round. I was cheering for the Flames to break the Fire's winning streak but Hawkins just too good with the buzzer beater and now Townsville's winning streak is double digits! The Flames can claim some kind of moral victory against Shyla Heal at least lol - Heal fouled out in 18 minutes and had minimal effect on the game and they look *much* better with Mangakahia at the point. Keely Froling puts in another strong 20/10 performance and surely it's a priority for the Flames to retain her for next season (Mangakahia is already contracted),

Good thing heals have gone, night and day this flames team over the past month.

Great game to watch, looked like the Flames had it. How many times have the Fire gotten out of jail like that this season?! Great buzzer beater by Hawkins

First game all year where Reid has been outplayed , Tiana has found her niche since the departure of the Heals.

Shyla's minutes are now in proportion to her ability, hope that Sydney can keep the core of that group together and give Gorman a chance to coach next season.

Mangakahia being fit and in shape is different beast, taken quite sometime for her to get here after beating cancer. After jnr season at Syracuse was top 10 in the wnba mock draft at the time, was not the same on her return a year later. Now flourishing once more... Be interesting to see what she can do as the primary point for an entire season at the flames.

I really think point guards like Mangakahia, Melbourne and Robbie Ryan are staking some pretty strong claims against more fancied opponents.

Great to see the turnaround for Sydney, but just as disappointing to see the way Bendigo has dropped off in recent months after such a great start to the season. The Sydney players now looking so positive, focused and together, while recently the Bendigo players mainly seem to be going through the motions. No doubt having KC injured for many games has been tough for the club, but hard to believe that that alone can explain the changes in efforts, defensive intensity, focus and general on court spirit.