I felt like the difference was we ran a faster offence in the second half, their half court defense was quite effective but they struggled when we pushed the ball.

Nothing but high praise of Brett Maher over his career, but an honest assessment of last nights game was what I gave. He needs to settle into a new role, which may take some time. We need to run a few plays for him to be a catch and shoot guy (Which I'm sure will happen)

Never in my time of watching him have i seen him stop shooting due to lack of confidence.

I think you may need to read the post again.

He is no longer running our offense and that is a new role.

Please fill me in on who was our true point guard over this time since Darnell Mee. I think you will find that it was Brett's job to run the offense. However there is less of a dependance on him this year.

The ones that come to mind:
Brad Davidson - when him and Brett were on the court at the same time which didn't happen too much last year through injury.

Willie Farley - Too selfish to run an offense - Shooting Guard.

Julius Hodge - Point Forward, wasn't here long enough to change Bretts role.

Bada bing, Brett Maher is a two guard, always was, always will be. He didn't have to create any shots last night, but uncharacteristically did miss some sitters after great setups from others. He will bounce back on Saturday though.

last night showed that when the chips are down during a game we now have a group of guys that stick to the game plan, get back into it and finish off. Good win when considering a number of them had an of night.

What about when Charles Thomas played?

Or have we all repressed that from our memories? :)

I agree that Brett Maher is a shooting guard. Thinking back through the years since Maher has played in the starting line-up (I think Dunlap was the first to start him) I've come up with this :

1994-1995 : Maher played mostly SG. Robert Rose had the majority of the playmaking duties from the 1, 2 and 3 spots.

1996 : Rick Brunson was the PG, Maher the SG.

1997 : Maher was the PG, sharing the backcourt mostly with John Rillie.

1998-2001 : Darnell Mee was the PG, Maher the SG.

2002 : Maher played PG with Willie Farley the SG.

2003-2004 : Charles Thomas was the PG, Maher the SG.

2005-2007 : Maher played PG with Farley the SG.

2008 : Maher played SG with Brad Davidson the PG. When Davidson was out, Sutton took over the PG role but Maher did increase his playmaking responsibilities during this time.

By this calculation, since 1994, Maher has played point guard a total of 5 seasons (1997, 2002 , 2005, 2006 & 2007) and shooting guard a total of 10 seasons (1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2008)

A lot of this was based on my memory of past seasons, so please correct if I'm wrong anywhere.

Great work Stats Machine but Bretts role this year will be and is different. We have 2 top point guards in Davo and Bruce and lots of ball carriers in last 2 games Paoro- Hill even Tyndale and Holmes helped out all Qlty ball carriers we havent had that before.
Brett will still ave 20 pg but Scotty may need to work on some plays to use him to full advantage.
The drive into the keyway dish out may need to be used as am sure not all teams are going to allow Tyndale to get to the basket as easy as he did in second half and still think interstate some of those fouls in last half might become charges.

Brett is fine - he just had a mortal evening for a change. In the first quarter against Townsville, he had three open 3s and drained them all. Last night, he had about three similarly open 3s in the first quarter and bricked them. Just an off night.

bretts the man , I agree his role is different now.

I think the main two differences between this season and the last 10-11 years will be :

1. More talent in the backcourt means Maher won't have to be everything for everyone anymore. Theoretically our offence won't turn to hell when he sits, which it has done ever since Mee left. Hell, we have people who can get the ball over half court now. The last two seasons Maher was the only one who could consistently manage to achieve this remarkable feat.

2. More talent also means less minutes, which I think is the key change. Finally the Sixers have a coach who realises Maher isn't 22 anymore and if you run him for 42 minutes a night he will breakdown by mid-season. The Sixers have recruited accordingly and Maher can now rest.

He is still crucial to the team but I feel the burden is less and his role is smaller than it has been in a long time.

Just like to point out the real good sign- we play up tembo ball, and we still held two teams in a strong comp to the 80's.

That is real good and when you consider the new players and coach, it becomes even better...

For the last time. Brett Maher will have a different role and should not have to create his own shot or run the offense unless Bruce, Davidson, Hill and kersten, and Tyndale are all off.


The End

bada bing, I think your view is understood. You don't have to repeat yourself.

Yeah, I think we get the point, you are just wrong is all. Maher created exactly one shot for himself last night, the one that resulted in the goaltend. The other nine attempts were all from catch and shoot spot ups.

i blame Bonz's jeans for Bretts poor shooting

He was running the point at that stage wasn't he?

Brett still had around ten shots last night about two really open(mainly in first five minutes)and the rest under pressure nothing he aint used to, just an off game but like some posters stated good to see we dont need to rely on him week in week out. Enjoyed (Batmans aka Bruce Waynes) dribbling SKILLS lot of potential there and good outside shot a real threat,Tyndale(Magic lookalike) was solid as his numbers suggest but lets not forget is young but he was awesome glad to have lets hope he's settling in ok. Balls could of had 30 nough said ! Overall am pretty pleased with squad and coach alike another championship brewing? The crowd took a little while to get into it last night but I think in the end helped team to get back into it game and finish off strong.

Brett's a legend. Let's just leave it at that ay? Now, if you all don't mind, I'd like to actually talk about the game.

Tinny was fantastic, unbelievable rebounder! The only knock I have on him is that his handle is a bit loose, so he will probably average 3-4 TO's a game. One thing I really noticed last night as opposed to last week's game is how much he reminds me of sonic the hedgehog. He just flies all over the place and is an absolute livewire.

Balls has had two substandard games IMO, on both occasions he's missed 3-4 shots that he'd normally make, dunno if that's cos of the back, or if he's just underdone; but at the same time he's still averaging 20ppg at better than 50%. Also had several HUGE blocks and was awesome defensively.

On Schenscher, I still have mixed views on him. Yes, he had 14 & 7 in just 18 mins. For a start he shot 5/11, which is unacceptable for a 220cm beast like him; he still needs to be more assertive in offence, and use his strength; and he really needs to stay at home on D, he was drawn out of the key 4-5 times and we got burnt on every one of those occasions. IMO, he should not be starting, or even getting more mins, until he starts doing those things better.

Jacob once again performed his role beautifully. Had double-figure rebounds again, made several great defensive stops in the 3rd Q, and hit some timely shots (especially that 4th Q 3 he drained.) He did have more shots than I'd like, but given how poorly everybody else was shooting, it's hard to blame him for trying to hit a couple.

Brucie was still rock-solid with 20pts and 8 assists, but struggled to run the half-court set, which has to be a bit of a concern. His 5 TO's were also a bit disappointing, but I think it was mainly evidence of him trying to do too much when we were struggling to create.

From an overall team perspective, we are a brilliant fast break team, which should see both Bruce & Tinny be amongst the league leaders in assists. As has been noted already, our half-court offense was very, very poor, far too many flat-footed players, but that's not a surprise given the number of changes we made in the off-season. Come our next home game in month's time, that should be looking a lot better. Finally, to keep the opposition under 90 pts for both games is a great effort, however, doing that to Townsville & Sydney is COMPLETELY different to say Melbourne, NZ or Perth. But signs are good...

On a side note - Liam Rush. Was fantastic on wed night & must be one of the most underated players in the league. I've seen him play a couple of times before and been impressed, but he took it to another level on wed. Was their best player by a mile (Honorable mentions to Low & Khazzouh.)

Doubt he'll ever play for the Boomers, but the only major difference between him and a Barlow is the team they play for. If Rush was in a Basketball market he would be a STAR, IMO anyways.

good call jordan... very good call!