Perth will struggle inside without Knight, Crocs by 8

us by 7

Crocs with Knight out. Keen to see how Blalock handles the press though...

Lisch on the buzzer again...

This game will be a tough one to pick, but am glad to be able to watch it on OneHD.

The Perth Wildcats appear to be the stronger team on paper, with a strong back-court of Martin, Lisch and Robbins able to pressure the ball handlers of the Crocs and the ever reliable Shawn Redhage there to score and attack the rim.
The loss of Matt Knight for this game will be an issue for the Wildcats in dealing with the size of the Crocs.

Townsville on the other hand will need to take advantage of Knight's absence by continually pounding the ball inside to the big front line of Schenscher, Hinder and Allen. By utilising their size inside and finding open shooters, the Crocs should be able to turn this game into a shootout.

Overall I think that the Crocs size is going to be the difference in the game, but the Wildcats are going to make turn this game into a close contest.

Now I'm no expert, but I'm tipping Perth to have a lead at the Half, but Crocs to pull out the win by 5

I think the Crocs are warm favourites. Schenscher is in great form, Freeman is warming to the NBL and Hinder adds a bit of variety to the front court. As long as Martin and the poison dwarf don't completly disrupt Blalock or Redhage and/or Lisch don't go completely nuts offensively the Crocs will get the W.

No Knight so the Cats are pretty undersized up against Schensch, Allen and Hinder - yet Perth are still in front at this point. Just seems that height is overrated in the modern NBL.

Townsville not letting go yet.

Extremely poor refereeing tonight and ONE's coverage hasn't improved a bit, it might even be worse.

With those negatives out of the way, I freakin love the way Gabe Freeman plays. He had a down game, but when he puts it all together offensively, stays out of foul trouble and gets a bit of love from the refs, he looks capable of some huge numbers. You couldn't fault DeVries' performances so far but Freeman is the exact type of import I thought would be perfect for us.

Big 4th quarter from Blalock. They'll be happy to see he's capable of that down the stretch but it wasn't quite enough.

You thought Freeman was good?

Athletic - yes, did a good job on d - yep.

He looks like a young man without to much Basketball IQ. Great physical tools but no idea how to stay out of foul trouble, create his own shot and be an offensive factor.

Not sure I would have have two of him for DeVries.

I agree with you on the refereeing. After watching NBL and NBA for the first time in years I just see a huge gap in the way the game is called.

My biggest beef is over calling. It seems in OZ we still like to beleive basketball is a non contact game. The refs seem to want to call any contact whether it disadvantages the team being fouled or not.

Many many examples on TV last night where cheap almostno contact fouls were called. All this did was confuse players, coaches and the fans.

I mean we have 10 very big guys out there. here is gonna be contact. Call the obvious ones and let the slight ones go. In the NBA players can bump and push with the body but arms are off limits.

Also in the Nba charges are called in a more consistent waywith hooks etc being called.

For what we play players in the NBL we have a nice standard of play which needs the chance to evolve without being over officiated!

Whew .. I needed that been sitting on some of my comments all season!

One more thing too. How may threes were shot last night? Do we take more that in other leagues? Seemed like every second offense was a 3 last night?

Last thing. Why was Luke stuck onthe bench and Ben Allen???

I am done now

Crocs did not attack the press, content to get it over and play their half court offense. Their half court game is suspect anyway, they should have gambled a bit more. Taken the early shot, then crashed the boards.
Well done Perth, getting the job done on the road. Good signs for them.
Agree about refs, that block of Schenscher's early was as clean as you are ever going to get. Why did he sit for so long?
I Like the look of Freeman. Athletic as...
Not convinced with Blalock.

As a Perth fan, I thought the Crocs looked far more dangerous when Crosswell was running things than when Blaylock was out there.
Very happy to escape the swamp with a win. Crocs did an awful job of exploiting their size advantage.

Schenscher must be mystified by coaches sometimes. POTW last game, anchored to the bench (despite a reasonable game) this game.

Wish we could see +/- numbers on the boxscores.

Are the Cats that good?

Townsville seem to offer everything, but have just underdelivered

"Are the Cats that good?"
Not right at the moment IMO. On paper at full strength I rate us up with the contenders, but we're not in great form right now so with Knight out injured I thought we were ripe for the picking on the road last night.

Townsville didn't appear to have a game plan, and in the end we just plain out-worked them. For our tiny team to out-rebound them 43-25 in their own house they should be ashamed.

I agree Isaac, Gleeson did to him what Beco did last season - right in front of him! I would have had him out there 4 sure. xctatic, i thought Freeman sucked. He lost them the game!

There's another stat for the "Team x are too short" crowd. Cats started Redhage (listed as 6'8", could be shorter?) and Wagstaff and really only had Trueman to rotate through. Hire (rookie listed as 6'7" but looked a lot shorter) saw some minutes on Schenscher.

Yet, as Dan said, Perth out-rebounded the Crocs 43-25. No Croc had more than five boards. Perth won points in the paint 38-24.

Still early days, but the top four teams on the NBL ladder (and four of the top five with Centrebet) don't really have dominant 7' centre-types in a key role. Pledger and Behrendorff don't see a lot of time. Davidson isn't a giant. Knight is undersized. The Blaze have no one bigger than a PF, unless you count Garlepp.

Of course, I should say that I still get swayed by the on-paper match-ups, thought Schenscher would carry his form into this one and cause Perth trouble - my bet was with the Crocs and lost...

Croswell and Schenscher playing only approx 15 mins was a big mistake by Gleeson. Schenscher drew 6 fouls in that time.

Like so many coaches he went away from his strengths and tried to match the opponent's. Crocs only went to the post three times in the first quarter, so Gleeson cant claim he tried but the big lineup wasnt working.

Agree 100% about the point guards, the Crocs looked best when those guys were aggressive.

Yes I said Freeman had a down game (I wouldn't say he cost them the game), but you can see the potential there once he puts it all together and gets used to the standard of officiating. I love his aggression, even if it is misplaced at times.

Even then I think he only missed about 5 shots and his 5 steals were pivotal.

Xctatic i agree Freeman looks like a great athlete that could explode at any moment but he looks out of sync in this system. Maybe Trevor outsmarted himself by going with 2 untried imports instead of keeping last years nucleus 2gether & adding depth. Sacking Homicide may come back to haunt them!

Being a crocs fan, I was very disappointed. Gleeson had a shocker, G - Force was average even though he top scored, Blalock needs to grow a pair, and the crowd needs to improve!!!!

What happened to the good old days at the swamp when we sold that shit out?

orbit, I half agree. Blalock and Homicide are complete opposites. Homicide is a one-man team who can score at will without really fitting into any team offence, while Blalock seems happy to sit on donuts in his stat line while he just passes it to the right places to let the stars do the work. I think they needed something in the middle ground between those two.