if sixers replicate last game effort they are a big chance in this. Hawks will be looking to rebound but their foundations could be shaky after taipans loss and sixers on the improve- close!!

Can't say I share your optimism, flatshot. I really believe that the Hawks are a class outfit and are more likely to bounce back hard after their defeat than crumble. I'd love to be wrong but I think they'll get it done without too much fuss.

Yup Hawks by 15

My heart and head were in conflict! I decided to adopt the following position.

Had the 76ers beat Boston I would have gone for the Sixers.

Had the Celtics beat the 76ers, I would have gone for the Hawks.

Won't spoil it for those who don't yet know the result between the Celtics and 76ers. Those who know the result now know where my thoughts are on this matter.

If we don't get a hand in Ozzie face, then we're gonna get killed tonight!

As soon as this game is out of reach, next 10mins or so, id be sitting Shannon. No need to risk an injury to a guy who surely is atleast slightly jet lagged. Hawks are just in a different hemisphere compared to our intensity etc right now. Devries will be next to go by the way.

That's because the shotclock is not working.

jesus christ worst reffing ive ever seen!

From what I have seen in th first half, On Eyed Eddie is exactly what we need!!! Penetrates and makes some very simple, smart passes. This guy is legit, once he becomes accustomed to playing defense in this league will be such a good fit for our club.
May be shooting myself in the foot going on record this early but this is what we lacked from Winder. Penetrate pass...penetrate pass. We will see him over the next couple of games get a better understanding of how he can score for himself, but for now keep doing what your doing Eddie!!!

Wow im impressed, Shannon has pretty much kept the 6ers in the game! Great welcoming how no one yelled out screen though! Id be pissed if i were Eddie!

The shotclock isn't working on the right-end of screen basket annon, hence the announcer counting down the last 10 seconds.

Only down 3 at the half. Shannon has distributed the ball really well, and a couple of guys have gotten some great open looks as a result. DeVries next to useless.

Forman playing great, though Hawks a little flat. The officiating has been really good thus far.

its a no brainer why the hawks havent lost at home. Just look at the calls i have seen some serious shockers already

Oh and Johnson needs to toughen up. Will be a very good player if he does but will continue to be average if he continues to be soft and selfish.
I just don't know if you can teach that...

Good comeback to have it at 3 points at the half. Eddie Shannons going to wholly change our offense with 5 assists already. I still dont get how he can see so well, if i close one eye I'd be screwed.
Still need to get the ball to Ballinger more and the way DJ is attacking the ring tonight I'd really like to see him on the court with Balls for a while, instead of the 1-2mins they usually get.

the old ref is shit. completely bias and to arrogant to listen to anyone. he should of retired a few years ago.

Eddie Shannon iscimpressive. Great vision & good passing. Keeping us in the game. He'll be good when he settles in more

Yeah, I'd have to say not too shabby so far for a guy who just landed without his luggage, doesn't know his teammates, doesn't know his opponents, and is wearing borrowed shoes. Sixers hanging around nicely so far.

shannon definitely a fantastic fit so far. Keep it up. Good to see balls get the ball while open and not being ignored

shannon definitely a fantastic fit so far. Keep it up. Good to see balls get the ball while open and not being ignored

It has been good to see Ballinger get some open shots (read as "spoon fed"). He's been open on those screen plays all year, but a certain someone didn't seem to want to pass the ball. I actually really liked the way Shannon set Dowdell up on a three also.

The Champ - think Darren might have had something to do with keeping us in the game so far.
Great play by him as he has been under the pump at this level.

Jacob needs to be more aggressive offensively coz he has the talent

So the scoreboards working now. Thats a pretty big issue in a game to have the away team have to try to listen to the numbers counting down and then the home team doesnt suffer that HUGE disadvantage.
I dont know its probaly completely innocent but thats some dodgey stuff really.

Seriously... Brad Hill, step up and be useful FFS.

Yeah, given that it was stuffed for the majority of the first half one could argue that that the fair thing to do would have been to leave it alone.

Brad Hill and Ng should never be on the court at the same time.

Brad Hill could possibly have the lowest basketball IQ of any player I've ever seen.

Agreed Skud.

Brad Hill again... seriously; take the Charge don't let them glide past and foul.

Devries goes for a layup, arms completely wiped out, no call fast break to wollongong...sigh well done for giving them a 3point play Hill, you just keep proving me right in that you should never have been in the team.

Ng has been awesome & he's handsome.

I've never been a huge Ng fan defensively in the past but the way he put his body on the line twice for those two charges that weren't called was impressive.
Totally agree with the umpiring, i now know why teams are complaining. To not get the call on Campbell when Dowdell grabbed that rebound for the put back whilst Campbell was holding his arm and then to call that soft crap the other end is a joke!

Second quarter - darren Ng absoloutely IN court when he deflected the ball back in - he did run out of court and ran back in when he reconnected with teh deflection but did not have any contact with the ball whilst over the line - cost us a fast break, bad call by refs who were being influenced / led by the wollongong bench. Ng had a very good reason to feel annoyed.

Get fucked.

Bullshit call.

Wow adelaide hit the 3 and the refs called a BUUUUULLLSHI@T foul on shannon.

As marty clark just said, thats how it is in this league, its a bush league LOL

Welcome to the NBL, Shannon. That's the type of BS that gets whistled here. Best of luck.

Why isnt balls on the bloody court

That play demonstrates why Holmes is on the court instead of Johnson, he's all heart baby!!!!

Ballinger should touch the ball on every possesion.

DeVries ... wtf ... why the panic stuff?

More ball movement less DeFries putting up bricks.

Im a De'vries fan but he hasnt had a game to put him on and have him trying like he is right now...bad sub clark and bad play by De'vries

Devries... you complete dick

You just cost the game.

Oh Troy, I thought you would have learnt from the Winder experiment and look who he's now playing for.

I've been a fan but the blow touch is on and you wilted big time.

One last thing, Ervin is an absolute gun.

We had it but we lost it.

Sick of credible losses.

Seriously a close loss is not good enuff in pro sports.

Love my team and will always will but we cant be the RIchmond of the NBL

Ervin is a gun, without him this team would be nothing.

Just for interest, how many freethrows have we had this game in comparison?
Im sick of close losses with abhorable biast umpiring. if we lose the game we lose the game, but to be consistantly robbed throughout the course of the game is just getting f#$king rediculous.

De'vries had a massive brain fart from a guy who has been solid and smart all year.

Carter on the foul line, need 1 from 2 with a rebound on the miss and our best rebounder is on the bench for DeVries.

Made both anyway so didn't matter.

Devries hs to go. Gaze is basically putting it out there in his polite way! One piece away from a very very good basketball team in Adelaide!!!!

not having a shot clock for a half could be the difference.

what a JOKE!

Yay Ng for the finish. Great game by all...

..except Hill and Devries.

FFS that pisses me off sooooo much.

Thats the first pressure shot I've seen Ng hit and it was a cracker!

"not having a shot clock for a half could be the difference.

what a JOKE!"

I'd be lodging an official complaint about that, several plays they were able to drag out the clock and know exactly how much time was left on the shot clock. Something that we were deprived of for the entire first half. As Gaze said, the gong should have swapped to take the disadvantaged side since it was their home game and their technical "error"

22 freethrow attempts to 10..hahaha yeh haha yeh..errm wow well what do you know

ay we competed an played hard, yeah our record sucks but compared to the effort of last years squad im wont complain. DeVries hasnt help himself an i think if we can get a good medium size swingman we could have a crack.

Hill has been a lil dissapointing i reckon start Dowdell or DJ, change the mix abit Shannon is all class an will get players good shots

Whinge whinge sixers fans-I know this is a completely biased sixers forum and I'll get shot down but what can ya do......

the pathetic calls were going both ways...im not a fan of either team...as for the shot clock-its happened several times throughout the year already-its happened about 3 times in melbourne!!!!

You were in the game the whole way-then down by 6 with about 4 seconds to go-he drives for a layup???? Ummmmm....yeah good thinking!!!

You lost it for yourselves. So, sixers fans, get your hands off it and start looking in your own ranks before blaming everyone and everything else!

Wow sixers choked in the 4th, at least your new import looks good

I'm pretty confident that Mitch Creek's presence might have made a difference tonight. Perhaps that was the missing piece Gaze was referring to. I doubt he was suggesting DeVries should be axed.

I also doubt Conraed would have got the baskets he got tonight had Creek had him as a defensive assignment.

Great effort, pity about the result and yes, the Gong enjoyed the benefits of home court. My faith in the Sixer's abilities to make a unexpected run at the finals is still in place, especially when you consider we haven't played the Gold Coast or Tigers and we've only played Sydney once.

I still believe Adelaide is the best team outside the top four and most of their loses have come against the best teams in the comp. It's a big improvement on last season and I imagine the team will only get better after the new year.

+1 nbl fella you hit it right on the head! Calls were going both wAys you shunting sixers oh and those who said we would benching without Ervin.. We were starting Martin at pg after McKee wS injured last year and we syllable made the gf... Where did the sixers finish?????????

+1 nbl fella you hit it right on the head! Calls were going both wAys you shunting sixers oh and those who said we would benching without Ervin.. We were starting Martin at pg after McKee wS injured last year and we syllable made the gf... Where did the sixers finish?????????

eddie looks like kavossy franklin and nic natanui- great player and great pick-up!! bring in another 2 player and u guys could be good

Wow man can you type??

You had a different team if you remember last year, but ok. Take away Ervins points this year and add an average import, suddenly your win loss ratio isnt half as good. In saying that Im not bagging your team, Im just saying that Ervin is good enough to raise an average team into an absolute contender. Look at how much he has helped Forman with his game, its his standout year because of how he's being fed the ball.

Sorry my typing was terrible due to my iphone, my point being however.. even without a 2nd import for the entire playoffs the hawks still managed to make the finals last year. I would also put Oscars form down to Gordies system, rather than Ervin.. look at Trigger in Melb now.

I'm surprised that Shannon's drive to the basket with less than a minute left drew such criticism from Carfino and Gaze.

It seemed obvious to me that he recognised the opportunity to make a lay-up and draw a foul, especially given the fact that Ervin drew so many fouls on drives to the basket.

Had the call been made, and it appeared to me at the time that there was contact, it could have turned into a 3 point play and potentially a 5 point play had he missed the bonus but result in the sixers nailing a 3 on a rebound possession.

Hypothetical I know but potentially more advantageous than just pulling up for a 3.

that contact wouldnt get called in any game. Saville went up for the block-its just body to body contact. No foul whatsoever.

I think the sixers would have been better jacking up the 3 with more time on the clock-then giving the quick foul. Rather than waiting till there was 4 seconds on the clock. Look at Ng's three on the full time buzzer-it could have been done

Adelaide have a good import in Shannon,
pity Holmes , hill and a few others are no brains.
Ballinger solid, wish he was back with the hawks.
Why they don't give him 30 shots a game I don't know?

Holmes fouled every rebound just pushing players etc.and let go by refs


Good win for the HAwks , shows some promise for the 36ers if they use Shanon and Ballinger properly

agreed. If sixers keep up that type of game intensity we will turn around the win loss record

lol at the pub there was no volume but i was wondering why they zoomed in on his shoes. So whos shoes was he using?

Eddies luggage hasn't landed yet so he had no kicks they were a pair of Kobes owned by marty clarkes son

F##king pissed. "But that's how it is in this league. It's a bush league."

I'm embarrassed for the League that that game was televised. Way to reinforce the majority opinion amongst the average Australian just starting to watch some ball that the NBL isn't worth shit when there's NBA on TV. The disgusting officiating, the shotclock screwjob... ugh.
Don't tell me that didn't effect us either, how many shotclock violations or bad threes/passes on the buzzer did we have in the first half from guys who had no awareness of the 24?

You covered it well Big Ads, you take the two in that situation, especially when you can draw contact like that.

"that contact wouldnt get called in any game. Saville went up for the block-its just body to body contact. No foul whatsoever." - NBL Fella

Hold a straight face and tell me Gary Ervin wouldn't have gone to the line for that. As a matter of fact, hold a straight face and tell me he didn't go to the line for that already a dozen times in that game. Bullshit mate.

The amount of times these muppets fall for the most blatant flops by Ervin is mind-boggling. Gabe Freeman would've been sitting at home watching that shit, shaving his braids, throwing a shooting sleeve on and trying to shrink 7 inches.

I agree with the majority on DeVries. Injury may be an excuse for his weak recent form, but it is no excuse for that decision making. That was worse than anything Winder pulled in the clutch all year. If the injury is serious as well, send him off.

To the positives (ie most of the team):
You couldn't ask for much more from Eddie, looks like the man we've been lacking and, looking at his Euro stats, he won't go 0-4 from three again soon either. Only bad decision I thought was when he passed up an open layup towards the end in order to give Ninja a heavily contested Tre, but I'm sure 'NBL Fella' thinks that was a great decision.
It was especially nice to see him co-exist with Carter on the floor for 20 minutes.

Balls needs the ball.

Ninja was huge. Thank God we have him back in some sort of form, hopefully it continues.

agreed xztatik! I was going to say the same but on my fail of a phone. The other end was only 'body on body' contact and the refs had no problem blowing the whistle. However we drive it hard and they are all looking amused. Peter carey has his work cut out for him. These refs need to be trained better. Cant we have an import rule for refs and get some international refs over here? Would really improve the league. The shot clock issue was just embarassing.

Great to see the sixers play with heart. Glad it wasnt a 20 point loss.

Really disappointing loss, but very encouraging result.
Wow it is a emotional rollercoaster being a 6er fan.
Taking nothing from Wollongong, but I hope they wrap Ervin up in cotton wool, we would have smashed them without him, he is all class.

Guys, too me its simple. I'm living in QLD, and can only go on the televised games and what I have read. But watching the games like tonight. I thought we fought well had a chance and pushed the Gong. If you had a look, we switch all our screens and they knew that. Look at a lot of the time Darren, Troy, Shannon, Carter end up on Oscar , Camren and Saville in the paint. Or Balls, Jacob or Johnson on Ervin and they got easy shots. We may have a 7 footer but there is too big a gap from Guards to Forwards in hight and teams smash us on it. Plus when it comes to the clutch all our guys panic and the result is like which you saw tonight. Time for a few people to go. I'm sorry but Brad Hill is the new Jason Williams, how long until he's the next big thing..... and Troy as an import. Plus I may be angry after watching the game, but sorry we have a long way to go.

Agree about the refs tonight. How the Hawks had only 11 fouls for the entire game I have no idea. Larry Davidson should have had about that many himself, instead of the convenient 4 he ended up with.

Good effort from the guys tonight. The difference was that the Hawks had Ervin to create down the stretch and the Sixers had a PG who was fresh off the plane. Give Shannon a few weeks and I reckon we will finally start seeing a team that can get its shooters the ball in the right spots.

Agreed with Shannon, he looks like a good passer, id like to see him penetrate and look to score a tad more like Ervin does, but not heaps more at the same time, say an extra 2-5 times so he can average say 15 pts, 5 assists, which i reckon is achievable for him.

Hopefully a little more penetration and if they can get Johnson and Ballinger the ball a bit more inside it will make the job easier for guys like Ng, DeVries, Carter on the perimiter.

If we keep Devries, and he is injured, id like to see Carter start in his place and have DeVries off the bench until he is healthy and playing well. Or they probably need to begin at least looking at other options if he doesnt come good real soon. (is Donta Smith legitimatly NBL available? was rumours about him and the Tigers and Kings, if so snap him up quick!)

Decision making is a key component of basketball. If you all feel Troy DeVries suffered tonight, ask yourself this question.

Why is Brad Hill continually on court and suffers brain failure week in week out and yet thats all fine?

Its a two way street, not one way!

if the sixers wanna win games, at least recognize when Ballinger is hot and get the ball into his hands

Yes it seems inconcievable that the only shot Ballinger could get in the 4th was a turnaround fadeaway 18'J.

XztatiK-if you actually read my comment properly. I said there were bad calls at both ends of the floor.

Anyway I think it goes back to what I also said-you should have won-sixers had the game in the bag and choked in the last 2 minutes. Get over it-still a long season ahead

Clark said bush league, he was frustrated with the reffing and the physicality of the Hawks and probably figured it was a good chance to get a cheap shot in on national television.

I agree the umpires where shocking. Almost as shocking as Ten's lack of replays. Like seriously, the NBA will have 4 replays for every dubious call or play while the NBL will have 1 replay for every 5 dubious calls and even then it might be a replay of some lay up that happened 4 possessions ago.


It still amuses me that Marty Clarke thinks he is still at the AIS, that or he thinks he gets bonus points leading the league in substitutions. The Hawks whom lead the league, constantly have players playing lots of minutes. Sure they aren't as deep as us but the coach has worked out that its only 10 minute quarters and these are professional athletes!

Last night in the 4th quarter the Sixers had 8 substitutions to their 1 sub. They had 4 players play the whole last quarter

Foreman 10 Minutes
Saville 10 Minutes
Ervin 10 Minutes
Davidson 10 minutes

These players must have extreme fitness to achieve such feats! No they are just professional athletes that can run out 10 minutes like any of the Sixers players should be able to! My point is the coach has had 3 quarters to work out who is playing well, it is NOT time to play bingo!

Furthermore, my main point which I haven't mentioned yet is with Ballingers last quarter. I thought Marty Clarke had finally worked it out last week when he had played him for the whole last quarter. He would have thought "Gee who would have thought playing our captain and best player for the entire last quarter would be a good idea!". This week he went back to his stupid 4th quarter substitution method "Look I know you are our main focus on offence and are 9 from 11 from the field but I am going to play you for 2 minutes so you don't have enough time to get warmed up. Then I am going to bench you for almost half of the quarter (4 minutes) even that this is a crucial part of the game. Then when you are super cold I am going to play you for the last 4 minutes and expect you to win the game for us. That sounds fair doesn't it? I know you are very effective when you get consistent minutes but this is the 4th quarter and I need to continue to lead the league in subs!"

Play your BEST player the ENTIRE (or at least most of) the last quarter!!!!!!!!

Can anyone stop Ervin?

Wow you sixers fans really get upset, the bad calls were going both ways. The fact is you got out played and out coached.... again.

It was the second most shots he has shot all season. He is consistently playing 30 minutes every game. What he could not last another 4 minutes in the 4th? Is this the reason why every game it is the same yet magically last game he played the entire last quarter even that we were up by double figures (even more reason to rest him then!)?

The shot clock issue isn't really suspicious at all. It is only the 3rd time it has happened this year and it always only effects the visiting team. And for some unknown reason can't fix itself during the quarter break, only fixes at half time.

Now I know Gordie is way above that, but someone in the Hawks isn't.

$10k fine the next time it stuffs up should make sure it works.

Not sure, but probably having a verbal countdown for the last ten seconds of the shot clock is an advantage, as the players don't have to look for the shot clock.

Larry D is a bit of a grouch - needs to get called on some of the unnecessarily rough play. I thought his screen on Shannon should've been called an offensive foul as he raised his arms.

Tough loss.

Handsome Lee

The fact is you got out played and out coached.... again.