Cant see the game so hard to make that judgement after one game, BUT Ninnis has been a poor road coach now for 1 season and 1 game....absolutely not good enough. Cairns are pathetic in all the key areas of a ball club yet they beat the 6ers. Shame shame shame

That didn't take long.

Assuming OP is not just trolling (Which he very well could be).

Who's OP?

Yeah it is the first game there champ, atleast give him a few games before judging. However I do hope its not another crap season, where we can't do anything on the road.

OP = original poster.

And yes, agreed that this season we need a dramatic improvement in road performance. Scraping by on home wins only is not going to cut it.

It sucks, and i hate all the negativity so early on in the season, but really what choice do fans have. This wasnt justa winnable game, from all the amazing reports we hear each week from training, coupled with Cairns sub par effort in NZ to even show up, this was penciled in IMO. I want the 36ers to start responding to this critiscm via wins...thats all.

oh for gods sake....

maybe cairns played well? its oing to be a VERY tight season where anyone will win on any night

as for groves...how did ballinger go, should the 6ers piss him off too?

I wasn't a big fan of the Grooves signing and feel we would have been better going for a bigger guy since we have guard/forwards easily covered. BUT We have gone with Grooves and give the guy some time, he had some decent pre-season games and from all report still has plenty of skills.

Give Grooves some time, Cairns were favourites for the game as much as we all may like to disagree.

Cairns are pathetic in all the key areas of a ball club

Cairns have Mills, Jones, Melzer, Crosswhite, Rychart and Boodnikoff - even though they wont win the championship, that is enough talent to be tough at home, especially for an Adelaide team that was playing its first game together.

So how many rounds will be usuing the even season excuse? Based on the players cairns have and the perfromance i did see on Thursday night, they look like a horrible team. Id give my left nut to wrong about what i think this result could eventuate into....please im all ears to be proven wrong.

One of the other posters is correct though, i wouldnt be blaming individual players this early, the Captain was 2/13. But after being say 1/7, shouldnt the coach have tried to create a play to get someone of Ballingers calibre different looks?

Little bit hard to comment without seeing the game about individuals but maybe someone can fill me in.
Thanks Paul for comments about Boodnikoff, maybe he has more game than I gave him credit for.
Ballinger's 2 for 13 looks terrible but where did he shoot those shots from. If he was down low and wheeling into paint and just missing jumphooks then that is forgivable, but it doesn't sound like it, otherwise he would have been fouled more.
Also what defense did Cairns go with because athletically and sizewise they cannot be a very good MAN team so I wonder how MUCH zone did they get away with. Thats probably the only way I can imagine they could contain Gilchrist.

was at the game last night however he seemed ok, bit rusty but i guess maybe next week will be different.

generally we missed easy lay ups, but overall was ok.

however some of the reffing was ordinary. I tend to think the refs are different everywhere.

ordinary here with guys like macdonald and co, ray hunt in melbiurne with damien theiss etc. the odd charge called made me stop n think(was i really here seeing some of them for and against).

very disappointed!

PS: it was heralded before the season the all american backcourt would be awesome, i didnt see it working in awesome tandem. Gilchirst yes, but groves....um not really

It's not an excuse - this has been slated as an even season for months by many and will remain true for the duration of the season. There are going to be no easy games.

NZ's two guards went 16/20 from three against the Taipans. Make that a more realistic 10/20 even and that's an 18 point swing and a close game. Both of those teams played like they were still getting used to things too.

I had a feeling that Adelaide might lose this one. Worst part is that with NZ up next, there's a real risk of starting 0-2.

The TAB and NBL game preview had Cairns to win.
If a player that averages 19 gets 7 - that's the main reason for the loss.
If Burston started and Gilchrist didn't get injured ,
we probably would have won.
I'm expecting to win at home and lose away.
Gilchrist is young outta college making his debut so you need experience at 2 and back up at 1.

From Voice(s) on OzHo:

They just said on Ten News that Groves got slightly concussed during practice today but should be alright to play and it seems both Burston & Hill will be eased back into things on Saturday night too.

Quite right Isaac about the unworldly threes by Breakers. Throw in top games by Rychart and Mills and steadier effort from Crosswhite and Cairns don't look too bad, so maybe a bit of perspective.
Still like to know more about the defences of both teams???

Breakers shot very well, but when the defence is so bad that Penney and Bruton are shooting wide open shots, that is not an unreasonable percentage. Those guys are money with a hand in their face, let alone wide open.

But any win this year will be a good win, particularly in the road. Even if NZ beat Adelaide, it is a 28 game season, so no need to panic.

what a tosser,no one played well , cortez can play

Paul, defense has been bad before but I'm told that it was just the second time in NBL history that two players from one team hit eight threes each.

Neither team played well which makes it hard to be confident about the 36ers performance. The shooting was appalling on both sides. The 36ers just looked like a tame pussycat with no grunt whatsoever. It is only the first game of the season but they allowed themselves to be beaten by a team that did not put up a strong performance themselves. The Cairns crowd aren't even that noisy and intimidating. This is a warning sign regardless of how early in the season it is. New Zealand comes next.

Oooh.. and they'll be here on Saturday.
Worth going there for a look.
Who will guard them?

Might be Gilchrist v Bruton - I'd like to see that.

Breakers Vs Sixers should be a good game. I think the Sixers will play a whole lot better with that first game behind them.

cant believe sixers dropped aaron for groves.. stupid

I think Bruce's salary last year would've been a fair bit higher than Groves' this year?

Bruce is a PG. Gilchrist is a PG. Gilchrist > Bruce.

Lilleyton, you need to catch up on current events. Bruce decided he wasn't committed to an NBL career over here. Pretty sure he has gone back to the US to get married and to live. Not sure if he is even seeking to play professional ball over there either. So not much the Sixers could do really.

Hopefully Gilchrist and Groves should have a speed and athleticism advantage over CJ and Penney? Would be nice to see Burston continue to dominate on the boards and get good outlets to Gilchrist. Ng and Hill would also benefit from some quick offence I reckon, so I think we have the potential to be a very effective transition team this year. Hopefully will get along to the game on Saturday and find out. Anyone hear if the Sixers are definitely retiring Maher's jersey this weekend yet?

I think Beantown is right regarding Bruce.

um pretty sure he wanted 2 play in adelaide its jst that they wanted him 2 take a 50% pay cut.. way 2 reward a player who won rookie of the year??

.. and i kno groves is gettin similar coin to what bruce got in his rookie season.

He got offers to play in europe its just his degree at baylor has one year left of academics and that itself is worth 50K us dollars so why waste that opportunity?

He is making a smart choice i think. And with south dragons likely to come back next season it would prob b a fair chance he may be back in the nbl sooner just a waste really because he is so much better player than hill, herbert, ng and groves i personally think.

Bruce was a good bench player being paid superstar wages. Stupid move by the Sixers in the first place, but a good move to cut their losses.

lilleyton, do you know what Bruce was paid? It was absolutely ludicrous and only happened because Groves' chequebook was out to handle it.

Based on what he was paid, a 50% pay cut was very reasonable.

Based on his performance, a 50% pay cut was very reasonable.

I see from the Adelaide Confidential story on Gilchrist that Groves is his mentor.
Anyway - we'll see the first home game and can have a good look.
We might see some overtime.

I see from the Adelaide Confidential story on Gilchrist that Groves is his mentor.
Anyway - we'll see the first home game and can have a good look at it.
We might see some overtime.

Lilleyton, I agree that it would have been nice to keep Bruce around. At the start of this season I was hoping he'd be retained, but the story quickly emerged on here that Bruce wasn't that interested in staying and was headed back to the States.

It may be that Bruce could have been retained if we'd been willing to pay top dollar, but as much as I liked him for long term potential, he clearly wasn't worth that last season.

If Groves is getting paid as much as Bruce was, I would be surprised, because people on here have been saying he was a 'cheap' option for our second import. But if he is, then we need him to perform better than Bruce did, otherwise we will have to cut him. I'm thinking 14ppg at a good clip, solid D, a few assists and low TOs.

But for now I'm getting right behind Groves and hoping he and Gilchrist can feed off each other and form one of the best backcourts in the league.

Plenty of clubs around the world that would want someone as talented as Groves, he was very successful in Argentina and France, but apparently he was pretty keen to come back to Australia and the Sixers may have been the only ones ringing.