Does everybody know what time it is?

7-00pm.......

Only joking. Im guessing security would not be overly happy if everyone arrives with the sidchrome set.

With no Melm_eth the Sixers should be able to win easily.

I am interested to see what sort of changes Ninnis will make to the starting 5. I would like to see Davidson in for Bruce and Grizzard in for Holmes. However, I think it will be only Grizzard into the starting 5.

Ranga Towers?? i like it.

The Blaze have no Melmeth or Frank, so our starting centre will be Pero....and he will use every trick in the book - be it legal or not - to keep Schensher out of teh paint. If the refs call fouls early then all is good for the Sixers, if not look for Shensh to spit the chewwy and be a non factor as his frustration takes over.

The Blaze will look to run and gun at every possible oportunity - it will be a green light for anyone who has the ball too shoot. Joyce will play extended minutes with Heal, harvs and Joyce together - it will either work resulting in a good game..or it will all turn to poo and mean a massive blow out to the home side.

6ers by 22

Luke will be fine - the refs protect him like he's Andrew Gaze down here.









Wait.

Apparently Melmeth isnt' as bad as first thought. He's now saying he may only miss 2 games with a compressed disc in his lower back.

From NBL.com: Melmeth Injury Not So Bad

Also from NBL.com, Matt McQuade's preview: Big Wednesday Watch - 36ers v Blaze

"Boy, it's gotta be incredibly frustrating to be an Adelaide fan these days". Yes sir, yes it is.

Any update on that banner, skip?

Im pretty sure the boys will have one. Look out behind the Blaze bench.

oh, ad Im pretty sure it will be one of the ideas posted.

The person whose banner idea you chose should get to request a tune for the night. I've got an MP3 of the Purdue Marching Band playing Fanfare for the Common Man to deter you from picking any of mine!

Shane Heal interview on fiveaa ( so I guess he's here, already), said he's in pain with his back. So definately finishing his career. Struggled with it this season, but will try to finish off the season.
He said blaze owner definately wants a team in next year.
Loves you guys booing him.

And, the last thing Ninnis would have wanted was a difficult american, turning up late for training.
Al Green and Mark Davis, there was none better.

We really need to fire up for this week's slapfest.

Aw, and .. ' sixers are a good team , but they always give you a chance. Will be a high scoring game '

Isaac - They actually have 2 banners. Both from ideas on here..... one may be yours....

bring on the fanfare!

Wasn't that Munchen Olympics?

Skip, do you have a CD of people clapping that you can play full blast. The reason being is that when the players come on court, there is going to be a noticeable difference because of 1 person that will not be applauding. Your CD can be used to boost it up and then no one will ever know that there is a disgruntled fan in the building, haha.

I enjoyed Heal chatting away about Hodge and the quality of imports. The aussie dollar. Anderson and Neilsen, money in Europe. Taylor , Jackson , Maher. Dragons, Gold Coast. As well as the game.
It was very interesting to hear him speak.
Different guy to the one that's on the court.

Anyone placed any bets on tonight?

I've got the Sixers to win by 1-10 at $3.15.

Skip - really? Where?

www.sportingbet.com.au

I think TAB is offering the same for $3.00 though.

Cheers man. I'll have to wait until I get home - filtered at work.

I'll throw some cash on them though - and I'll be sure to leave some left over to donate to Big Wheels.

I'd just be curious to know the blaze odds.
Not that I would back them. But just wondered what their odds are, compared to ours ?

Last time I checked it was Sixers 1.08 Blaze $3+

Aw. OK and thanks. Sorry. I meant to ask. What sorta crowd would you expect ?

I'd guess about 5,000.

Blaze are paying $7.50 at Centrebet. Line for the 36ers is -12.5.

wow I was way off then!

bruce isnt starting i guess davidson is starting

Boy is this a crucial match after last weekends debacle.
Although we will be helped by them losing a couple of bigs will help us to get inside if Schens in particular can get hands free from in the key gropes
and also stay aggressive to keep position .
But they can hurt us with their 3 point shooting as our defense has been poor in this area allowing too many open shots most weeks espec with Heal here this time. My view is that the key for this game and beyond is to improve our D hopefully coaches been working on . Lessen our turnovers starting Davo over Bruce will help there and lastly that The Grizz starts and finds his groove and confidence.
Lose this one and I will be posting about a team and coaches for next year

How do we know Bruce isn't starting?

what happen to casey franks ??
love to see the guy warm up

Hill will start.....watch.

The Key Area where they can make a difference is in the small forward position also where Holmes currently is playing!

It could be Hill but I doubt it because I doubt they would go Bruce, Maher, Hill, Ballinger, Schenscher

My guess is Grizzard in for Holmes. They might go Davidson for Bruce as well. I can only hope.

i would rather bruce starting as he is a better passer, scorer and dribbler than davidson and why knock the kids confidence? ninnis should tell bruce to be ultra aggressive because when he is in that mindset he is as good as any guard in the league including cj.

both should be to quick for heal and joyce either way.

Holmes will get flogged by bowen or whitehead once again.

the game i hope will be played on the inside as we have a major advantage.

bowen is the danger man we really dont have a good match up for him.

My posts keep disappearing on me. I blame the heat.

I'd assume their primary concern will be shutting down the run-and-gun style offence as well as rotation to perimeter shots. The Blaze have made no secret that they live and die on both, particularly in Melmeth's absence.

They'd also be wary of being blown away early by a perimeter barrage after the Crocs 7 minutes of perfect shooting last Saturday.

To that end, I wouldn't be suprised to see Grizzard in for Holmes. Whilst Holmes has better interior D and bangs bodies, Grizz is more likely to pressure outside shooters and get a hand. He'll also help more in an open court transition game.

I'd also not be suprised to see Davidson replace Bruce and immediately start dogging Heal and Harvey. I'd expect to see more minutes from Hill even if he misses the first five.

Re: the confidence argument with Bruce, the flip side might be true. Sit him down, shake him up, get him determined. I know a lot of players that respond to losing their spot by coming out firing. Plus, we don't exactly have the luxury of carrying players that our down on form at this stage of our campaign. Hopefully Bruce comes good tonight.

"i would rather bruce starting as he is a better passer, scorer and dribbler than davidson and why knock the kids confidence? "

If we are comparing Bruce's season this year with Davidson season last year as he was getting the same minutes, then Davidson is the better scorer. Bruce has only slightly more assist but also has more turnovers. Dribbling is debatable as its to do with the assist to turnovers. Davidson got more steals, rebounds and shoots better then Bruce.

I think it would be more beneficial coming off the bench for Bruce as that way he would not have any pressure on him to perform and can play more freely which is his style. Sometimes when Bruce starts I see him come in and force shots so that he can start off well offensively. If the shots go in he has a decent game, if they miss he usually isn't a factor in the game.

Also if he comes off the bench he will be up against tired guards and so he can use his speed more effectively then.

Davidson usually comes on and wants to control the offence when usually by that stage we have players that get up and down the floor quickly like Hill, Cooper, Winitana. On the other hand Bruce likes a fast transition game however but when he starts we usually have to set up the offence. If you switched both these players we would be more effective.

lol at king james

how can u possibly compare this to last year? 2 completely different teams and coaches..

this season bruce is a better dribbler, passer and scorer than davo this season with these players around him.

ab is younger than davo so he has years and years to learn how to "control" a offence to the level of davo if not beyond which when he does will be a force.

i hope ab uses his demoting to the pine as a spark like loco said because i feel he is a better player and will be around next season when davo may not be..

another breaking news is that grizzard is starting ahead of holmes

Scoring-penetration: Bruce

Scoring-shooting: Davidson

Passing/Playmaking: Bruce

Ball Handling: Bruce

Efficiency: Davidson

Defence: DAVIDSON!

Rebounding: Davidson

Overall: Bruce

Bruce should start IMO and play 25-30 with Davo getting the rest.

lol at lilleyton

How can you compare one player that starts with one that comes of the bench and has struggled with injuries this season so his stats would not be fair to compare. Compare apples with apples!

No doubt Bruce will be better then Davidson but currently he isn't I don't think.

We can just agree to disagree and hope for a good game by both of them tonight!

Not alot of good bets on offer for this one.
Have gone for big luke to score more than Harvey ($2.50), Ballinger ($3.00) & Bowen ($5.00) - long shot but it's only a measley dollar and its paying $4.25

Sixers should win, and by more than 10 but after 2 terrible performances against the blaze in the past it's a tough gig to bet on a win at only $1.09 and a big win 10.5+ at only $1.65

Well Brad Davidson and Brett Maher are the two starting guards with Grizz, Luke and Balls round out the rest of the five...

Hill the first sub then Jake and Bruce. Ballinger is doing very well at both ends.

Well, Adelaide have started well leading at quarter time 30 - 13.

Adelaide are all over this 58 - 36 at halftime.....

Gold Coast shooting at 33% from the field and 8% from the 3pt line......

blaze r a joke. whers this banner?

3 quarter time Adelaide 73 - 56.

the grizz was a non factor, balls and maher shot well. The refs were a disgrace. On my way home now to watch the replay on fox!

Grizzard was not a non factor, he did'nt score much but rebounds agressively and another player pushing the ball helped us alot. Also let Holmes know to earn his minutes which he did tonight. That Blaze team has no chemistry at all, looking forward to our next run.

Wow doesn't it make a huge difference starting Davidson and Grizzard for Bruce and Holmes! The diffensive tempo was set early on and Blaze were never on the game. Holmes came on and was able to take on an offensive role while Bruce came on and contributed good also.

They also gave limited minutes to Cooper and Winitana which I think is the correct thing to do.

I am so glad Ninnis and the coaching staff finally made the correct starting choices!!! I am surprised it took this long though!

Grizzard had a quiet game but I dont mind that if we are winning every game by so much. His offense will come his shot looked sweet but just didnt fall. He needs to get better defensively though.

It was a good win to get some confidence into the players!

I think the banner was made in honor of hodge

Sixers looked pretty good , I thought. Hill was a a bit quiet and Bruce tossed a few away. Burdon 3mins 3 shots 9points. Makes me wonder if he could get a few more minutes. Crowd 4965 I think they said. Heal didn't do anything. Maher was good.
Not quite sure if Pero is a basketballer, looks and plays like a wrestler.

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ahhh ohh my god! He's sooo bad! He is just sooo freakin terrible I cannot comprehend it. Oh God he's a joke!... but he keeps getting minutes, stays on the court no matter how many bricks he throws up or opposition PG's he lets slide past him. That airball was one of the most embarrassing things I've ever seen on a basketball court. Absolute flopping dud!

His statline deserves to be seen:

7pts 1rb 2ast 0stl 0blk 2fls 3/10 FGs 1/7threes 0/1FTs and some shitty, shitty defence in 31.22 mins. THIRTY ONE MINUTES!!!
Remembering that two of those points came from a Whitehead trip on Burdon when the game was over.

Ok, other than him, the rest of his team are pathetic as well. Anyone who has been preaching that they are not as bad as we think needs to have a good hard look at themselves. Their offence relies on hot-and-cold shooters with little penetration while defensively they have no one who can stay in front of his man on the perimetre and rarely bother to close-out on shooters. Add the worst coach in the league and you have quite a pathetic outfit.

Whitehead and Bowen were their only players tonight, and half of the pimple's rebounds came from his own missed layups anyway. His 8 assists were very nice though.
Harvey played like SoJ, Frank should have played more, Pero needs to realise that whales are more known for their swimming and under-water communication than their outside shooting (0/5), the Hammer had a shocker, the Hammer is a shocker.

So that's the Blaze, lets just pray that there is no owner out their dumb enough to hire Brendan Joyce next year so we don't have to watch him and his son's bullshit ever again.

Schenscher: Quiet but didn't do much wrong. Should have taken advantage of the mismatch on Pero a bit more but 16 and 10 is pretty good.

Ballinger: Superstar! He was out-rebounded by the pimple and Bowen a few too many times but offensively he was brilliant as always and his block was massive.

Grizzard: Had a bad shooting night but rebounded well, played some nice in-your-face D and had two great blocks. Although he wasn't hitting his shots tonight, he still contributed and didn't look at all out of place for someone in his third club game.

Maher: Maher was Maher. I'm just enjoying him while I can. He's a champion and he well-and-truly showed-up another supposed 'champion' tonight.

Davidson: Outstanding. Passing was great, rebounding was great, Defence was great and he did what he needed to offensively - including a looooooong three to bail-out a bad possesion by the Sixers. Ok, keep starting him.

Coop: About as much as you could ask for from him in 10 minutes. Great play on half-time from the Winitana 'assist'.

Holmes: This is his first game where I've wished he played MORE minutes! Fantastic first half at both ends of the floor. 12pts in 16mins. Some consistency is all we need now.

Winitana: Hmm... Good. His two great plays were the alley-oop feed to Hill and a big three in the last. He embarrassingly imitated SoJ with an airball but his D was solid.

Hill: He made up for everything with another spectacular alley-oop. It just keeps happening the same way! And it's just as good every time!

Bruce: 7 assists to match his PG-partner Davidson. He looked very comfortable coming off the bench. Only mistakes were two terrible full-court passes that were never going to reach their target. Just dribble it up and then pass it Brucie.

Hoban: Nowhere near as impressive as he has been in previous garbage minutes. He missed a layup and then missed a fall-away jumpshot which should've been a layup.

Burdon: Wow! When he came on with three seconds to go, I said "he will outscore SoJ in two minutes. I was wrong, he did it in about 1 and a half. 3/3 3pters in 3 minutes. Very impressive.

Skip: Good - 'Galvanize', love that song, keep it coming.
Bad - Banner... no banner... where's banner??? (lol, that is a great call, bluey. Almost ball-worthy)

Refs: Bad for both teams. Terrible for both teams. Haines is a dickhead and the blond one was arguably worse.

Crowd: Loud, good effort guys! Excellent booing!

Great blowout! Just the thing to get us back into form.

Oh... and sorry Statman.

I thought hill was great, how bout that alleyoop? Grizz played great d but needs to be more of a threat on offence imo..

The banners was disallowed by stadium management due to advertising.

good game, its kinda hard to judge where we are though after a game like this, it seems good but it was the blaze. Generally liked the way the guys played Grizz will be find once his shot drops, you could see it was frustrating him but his overall contribution especially towards the end was good. though he did get caught behind some of the screens a little too much for mine.

The refs were so bad that you could have got 3 fans from the crowd and had a better officiated game. Really liked some of the ball movement at points getting good looks for the 3 ball.

Skip, tell management they are a bunch of Julius'. That is crap. Are you allowed to tell us what was on it at least?

Good game all around. Rotations and starting 5 looked a lot more comfortable. Offense has obviously been worked on, much better movement and ball rotation. Hill's alley-oop was great, but what happened to the rest of his game? He had a shocker - good last weekend, shocking tonight, needs some consistency especially on the jumper and from the free throw line. Also needs some awareness of the shot clock - that long 3 was great, but he had no idea there was 2 seconds on the clock. Lucky the crowd was aware coz away from home that would have been a turnover. Ballinger and Maher were great, Schensch was solid (even whilst being grabbed, mauled etc - he should be used to this by now, it happens every game). Credit to Burdon for his only 3 minutes, what a gun! Holmes was great off the bench. Referees were horrific, they really can't tell the difference between a charge and a block, amongst other dodgy calls

How can anyone say this was a great win. We played the bottom side at home and still had some really poor performances. Brett and Balls our only effective 3pt shooters. Offensive rebounds!!!!! Balls and Coops had 7 of our 11, hello, no body home. Blaze the bottom side managed 20 offensive boards!!!
Coops obout the only one to handle Pero, he needs more minutes he's a wasted asset.
Burdon must be going crazy watching Bruce and Hill giving up all those 3pt shots. When those two are position for a 3 they cant get rid of the ball fast enough. We need every player out there to be Hungry. Davidson starting over Bruce any day.
Lots of work to do to play a quality side this end of the season!!

X,

On the banners were:

"Who needs a hammer, when you have balls like us"
"Sack Heal = Heal Blaze"

Basically Dome management, not Sixers management made the decision based on the fact that as it is a family venue they don't know what was on the advertised sites and could be inappropriate.

Do I agree, HELL NO, but that was the reasoning.

Advertised sites? You mean the John Rillie one and the other one?

FFS what are the odds on John Rillie being a porn star???

I agree with ay jay, considering it was a home game against the lowest ranked team on the ladder, it was not a convincing win. You look at the final score showing the 36ers won by 22 but when you dissect the game up into 4 quarters, you will find only 1 quarter decided the game and that was the first quarter. 36ers led by 17 after first quarter, 22 at half time, 17 again at 3/4 time and 22 in the end. They played 3/4 of this game only outscoring by 5 points. Whilst it was good that Blaze did not make a comeback from the poor first quarter, they did manage to keep up for the rest of the game. A good first quarter for the Blaze would have seen a different result.

For goodness sake EC, one day you will take a positive and be happy with a game.

I'm sure if we won the championship you would still be like "We won, but it wasn't really that good".

Sixers showed their class in the first quarter and from then on could somewhat cruise.

Even if the Blaze had of kept it closer in the first we still would have smacked them.

Grizzard is going to be great, a SOLID defender and much better than Hodge.

X - Exactly what I said, but I guess.....actually I really have no idea what the problem was.

lol yeah I can't believe people are saying that wasn't an impressive victory. We destroyed them what more could you want. Teams usually get up 20+ start to relax and try more things which we did. The ones that werent happy were you expecting a 50 point win or something?

anyone know if the hill dunk is or will be on the net?

Nate. You have to be joking. Hill is a disgrace!! Horrible in offence and even worse in 'd'. Or perhaps you are related to him. In which case you have my sympathies.

Statman - well done! You called it - 6ers by 22...

Surely there has to be some sort of prize for calling the margin in the game!?!?!? =)

KG what more could I want?
I want to see a much more balanced side without depending on Brett putting in yet another champion performance. I would like to see Hill and Bruce have less court time together as their dynamics clash. I would like us to be right up there shooting from range with a competative number of 3 point attempts. I would like to see us be competative with offensive rebounds. Does anyone know how our O/R stats compare with other sides?
I would like to see Burdon getting at least a few minutes in every game because he is hungry.
We may need him to perform if there are injuries.
I would like to be sitting there when we win finals!
We have some work to do yet!
Tonight was good game for the fans who dont come from an experienced player/coach base but I have to say we did not have the game won till the last six or seven minutes and we should have had it nailed down.
Consider the possability that we might be playing finals hampered by injuries. Try taking out Brett and Davo. Just take Brett out of tonights equation and we may well have lost to the bottom side.
Dont be mistaken I love watching every possible game
its just that I would love us to finish on a huge high.


Just one other thing, Pero one foul??? Boti please have something to say about that side of tonights game!!

Anyone know how much the bucket boys got for Brett Wheeler?

Wouldn't like to play finals without Maher or Davo.
I think we would have still beaten the blaze though.
Burdon might have got 18points in 6mins.
Bruce and Paora were ok.
( Pero was a disgrace to the game of basketball. Not a good advert for the game.)

Good to see Fitzy, Troy Gray and Ang Consantzo in the crowd.

Bizzy

Don't get me wrong, I am always happy with a win but you have to look at it realistically in terms of how deep the team will go into playoffs. Your comment "Even if the Blaze had of kept it closer in the first we still would have smacked them", yeah just like we did on NYE. The positive thing about this game was that the 36ers didn't allow them to get back into it after the first quarter. I want to come away from a game feeling that the 36ers can beat anyone in the league. I did feel that way before the Qld double last weekend but that was enough to sow the seeds of doubt again. The team have been totally up and down all season. In fact this is the area that their consistency comes from. All season they have had some great wins and then backed them up with terrible losses. The worst record comes on the road. When you consider that we are struggling now to make 4th and probably wont, the only playoff action we will see is probably on the road and judging on how the team handle road trips, how much further can they go?

KingJames, I wasn't expecting a 50 point victory, I was expecting a 20 point victory spread evenly over 4 quarters. That would have indicated that the 36ers were consistently superior throughout the whole game.

They got a great lead early and then coasted. Up by 22 at half-time, then the last eight minutes were garbage time. Now 10 days off before Perth.

Grizz to start - picked it.
Davidson to start - picked it.
Crowd of 5,000 - picked it.
Sixers by 9 - ok, not so much with the picked it.
I can live with 3 out of 4 :p

I'm glad Scotty persisted with Grizz in an effort to integrate him pre-finals.

I'm also glad the coaching staff identified the need for a different game plan against the Blaze and executed it effectively, leaving Harvey and Heal as relative non-factors.

I realise ref bashing isn't new, especially from me, but they're really starting to make the Sixer's experience a lot less enjoyable. Last night was just horrible.

Burdon was blatantly tripped - no call.
The charges on Ballinger and - was it Davo in front of the scorers bench? - were ridiculous.
Schenscher as always was mauled on both ends of the floor.
Consistancy was atroscious - they let hard fouls slide and nothing calls were blown. There's just no ryhme or reason to it. Come finals time, it could get ugly. Well, uglier.

At one point I was forced to shout out to the blonde idiot "Are you happy now? You're making Haines look competent!"

/rant

Good win, although a little scrappy for mine. But then, that was the plan.

Yep - picked the margin - but really it wasnt that hard. If the Sixers didnt win by more than 20 against us then there is something wrong.

Xztatik - I agree that Dan Joyce isnt worthy of 30+ mins a game - have said that all season, but personally I like seeing him on court rather than Heal. At least Dan trys to be a PG rather than an SG (note I said trys - how successful he is in his efforts is the debateable part) where Heal still wants to do it all himself and more often than not this year has fallen well short of the mark.

As for Whitehead I think you are a bit harsh, 21 points at better than 50% - 19 boards and 8 assists is a great stat line no matter who your talking about - let alone an undersized PF. His effort last night was outstanding!

Caseys minutes were low as he still has issues with his back. His Dr has actually told him not to play but he managed to help out for a few minutes where he could.

With that charge on Ballinger, it looked like he dropped the shoulder a bit to me, but I'll admit that it was at the opposite end to my seat.

I thought it was Grizzard in front of the score bench, but might be wrong there too - seemed that the Blaze defender (Joyce) had position to me.

Whitehead also wound up playing the 5 spot on D here and there, and rather successfully (thanks in part to some help from the men in grey).

Isaac - he had position, but there was absolutely negligible contact from what I could see (ie big time flop).

(I sit center aisle 8 rows back from there, so was side on to the call).

Loco - you could pick up on all sorts of calls - from the numerous TV replays Dan had position and there was contact - sure it wasnt huge contact but it was still there - If the situation was reversed and it was one of our guys running into Grizz then the crowd would have called for blood if the same call wasnt made.

Also Interesting to note that a group on facebook titled "Sack Brendan Joyce (and Son)" has just got a new member who is very close to the Blaze...One wonders whether this is a sign of things to come.

Grizzard charge happened right in front of me and I thought the call was correct.

Crowd booed because we were on a big roll at that point.

* folds arms *

Fine. You win THIS round, objectivity.

Almost forgot - great call playing the P-Iddy-Biddy-Diddy "Come With Me" track Skip.

That would be the best I've seen Holmes and Cooper play. ( Ballinger and Maher's best , also for a while)
The others I've seen play better, but still good.

Dome Management: BOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WE WANT BANNERS!

WE WANT BANNERS!

good effort anyways - there is still tonight and Monday for Kiwis and Melbournites...

Statman, Whitehead was pretty good, I just said that most of his boards came from his own missed shots but that's a credit to him for grabbing back the O-boards I guess. It seemed like he could've scored a lot more if it wasn't for his fumbling and some easy misses but you're right, it was a pretty good game overall.

Grizzard charge: There was very little contact and SoJ flopped as usual but you can't blame the ref for calling that one. The Ballinger one, however, was absolute bullshit.

I watched Joyce Junior quite deliberately last night on several occasions so if there was an iffy call, I would have witnessed it. What I saw in that time is that when he had an opposition player close to him, although no contact was made, he would jerk his body to make it look like he had been pushed. Now I saw him do that atleast 4 times throughout the game and he did get a couple of calls in his favour. The refs are normally bad but last night was the progressive result of them getting worse week after week. They have practised all season at being bad and are now quite good at it.