Can't argue.

Insipid peroframnce.

Really angry.

We have NO heart.

Weigh will get better. Perth just knew how to play him and even then he tried too hard for barely any result. He even tipped the ball in for Perth thats how great his game was going.

Helliwell on the other hand we cant expect much more then that.... I can't understand how someone so big plays like he is 6'5 with bad hands.

For me still couldnt work out the subs??? Dont think coach has changed much.............will i give him to end of season???????????

Weigh was disappointing but not nearly as disappointing as Hill has been in years gone by.

Helliwell didnt do much tonight in fact he was hardly ever in the key let alone rebounding which begs me to ask the question, "what was his role?"

Not many highlights for the end of year celebrations but standout was definitely Warren. Should be happy with that game.

Wade Helliwell's game is like NG's defense and strength, it will never be there. Seriously, They are soooo guard heavy and have no one in between. People will be saying that Creek will have a break out season for the next 10 years (He has no handles, no jumper and doesn't use his athletic ability to slash to the basket.) Anon is correct that Weigh is starting to play like a Sixer already and it's only the first game.

I have an idea for Clarke with his defensive strategy, it's new and revolutionary, and called MAN TO MAN, it's where you pick up a player so they are not wide open. Hopefully it gets through to him.

By the way did I mention that I am awestruck that Heliwell gets paid actual money to play the game of basketball. WOW!

Did Herbert play tonight? I was at the game but I don't remember him doing anything?

they made a point of attacking warren and weigh very hard. both were double teamed at every occasion.


ok so for the team. some worrying signs.


we let them turn every rebound into a contest, we saw this a bit last year and looks to continue.

for a small side we dont seem to force enough turnovers or move the ball quickly enough up court for those to be strengths of ours.

too often too hesitant on offense. no go-to guy.

warrens shooting was super good but what happens when he has an off night?? didnt look to be able to penetrate and go to the rim or even penetrate and dish. didnt see that once tonight.

no-one really can beat their man off the dribble and get to the rim. maybe daniel johnson and crosswell are the most likely in this department.

lots of youth and few old heads.

seriously creek has all the potential in the world why is he so gunshy?? needs to use that athleticism other than just waiting to get a free run at the rim. get around a defender and make the play. you are bigger and faster than every chump out there ffs.

Just finished watching the game on OneHD and I really can't believe what I saw. I know the 36ers are missing Balls and a 2nd import right now but Perth just dominated every part of the game tonight.

Right from the get-go they had a full court press running and Adelaide just couldn't adjust. The 36ers often took over 5-8 seconds to get the ball to their end and then they were out muscled and forced often into hurried shots. And as for defense.....if you can see the zone isn't working, change it. Perth killed us tonight because they had so many open or easy shots. The zone lasted all game and we got slaughtered. Tell me, is this the 2011/12 season or is it 2010/11?

As for Perth, have to admit they were awesome tonight. Remains to be seen how they go for the rest of the season but boy do they look better with Shaun Redhage suited up. IF they can keep up something like they showed at the AA tonight I'm not surprised they are favourite to take out the championship.

guys it was only our first game without probably 2 of our best 3 players, if this is happening late in the season then we will have something to really worry about, not doom and gloom yet by a long shot.

Perth are a rock solid team, most fans would have them finishing in the top 2, and have played together for years, so at this stage they are a class above us but they were at full strength where we were missing 2 of our 10 pt players.

Clarke as coach is ok to me, compare him to Bevo in his first 2 years at West Sydney and remember Perth is better resourced than us and Bevos Razors were also which helps with recruiting, but Clarke is going down a similar path than what Bevo was IMO, recruiting and hopefully retaining top young talent, if we can hold onto Creek, Johnson, Weigh and get 2 good imports for the next 5-10 years we will be pretty solid IMO of course continuing to target and recruit top young talent along the way, which i think Clarke is in a good position to do. Which means Clarke is on the right track.

Johnson is good offensively and will average 15-20 pts IMO, but as said still isnt the best defensively, hence why in the ideal when we have all of our players he will likely play most of his minutes alongside our import who can hopefully play some defense to balance him out and Ballinger and Helliwell will be a combo with Helliwell playing the defensive role to balance out Ballinger. I think Johnson will be one of the best C's going forward so hopefully we can retain him for the remainder of his career, as given he is a bit soft phyysically on defense and not a great rebounder he probably isnt going to be a guy who spends too much time in Europe. We just need to be aware of this and recruit a PF who plays defense and rebounds along side of him.

Weigh is a great pick up, will be very good, i think he will average something like 16pts 8 rebounds playing sf/pf, maybe even some SG.

Creek is a good young talent, he has plenty of work to do offensively, but be patient look at say Abercrombie at 19-20 years of age he wasnt doing any better, not even sure if he was on a NBL roster, so i think Creek will do fine and shows plenty of promise. I would like him to really focus on defense and be given the toughest defensive match up from PG-PF this year while his offensive game grows as he has the athleticism and toughness to do it imo, try to use him like Perth do Martin but from the SF spot, and i reckon he would have been better against Redhage and Wagstaff than having slower Helliwell and Johnson trying to guard them outside. I wouldnt mind seeing him start SG alongside Warren in a defensive role, and we could use Weigh as our SG on offense who has more perimeter skills.

Warren looks good to me, can shoot, is quick, yes he is small and not the strongest but if we can pair him with say a Herbert or Creek defending the best guards on the opposition our back court should be fine. If our import PF is as good, we will have a good import combo.

Herbert will be ok, he is just a role player, play defense, hit open shots, and surely will do better as the season goes along. For his role/points/$$ who else is better out there, other options available are guys like Kendall who is not really a upgrade on his past couple of seasons. If going forward we have concerns with him starting SG we could get a Dorsey type sg/sf/pf to start SG with Herbert backing him up,

going forward (next 5 years) a starting line up of Warren, Dorsey type, Creek, Weigh, Johnson with a veteran Ballinger, Herbert and a solid back up PG like Crosswell as our main 8 rotation looks good to me, which i would say is something close to what Clarke is building towards, but obviously we need more development out of young guys like Creek for this to work.

Helliwell was our 10th man and when full strength will be used as our defensive C alongside Ballinger for around 10mins per game, so not a bad pick up and not expected to do huge things, just play the Reesy role alongside Balls and im happy.

All in all not a great start tonight but i can see what Clarke and the 36ers are building towards and beleive it will work if we can retain our young talent, the likes of Warren, Creek, Weigh, Johnson we will have a real strong team over the next 5-10 years.

Clarke is the problem, same as last year, but yes two players short still, so we will have to wait for them to make the call that i know won't change.
I was more than happy with Phil, and understand we needed a change, but go up to a proven coach not to an untried one at this level.
Teams, however bad, most show heart and it comes from the ticker.
Team selection is the key and Clarke holds the can.
Beveridge was a good fit for perth due to $$$$ being available to pick the team.
But in West Syd he did not have that so he did not perform, but it gave him 2 years of practise at this level.

Croswell was good as backup. Warren shot ok but relied on the jumper and didn't/couldn't penetrate. Had both cross well and Warren on at the same time and both looked confused when didn't have the ball.

It was against Perth who choke everyone. Did you see mills's stats recently agains the 3 pronged guard defense.

Amazing comeback from redhage after a massive injury.

Creek was subbed out just when he was starting to get a bit physical with Perth which was good to see. At least he showed he was frustrated even if he can't shoot.

Ng and Warren on together we are too small and light. Both got out rebounded a number of times and gave up easy putbacks

He Lowell was never gonna be a superstar. He didn't play well but no one did. He at least tried to set some screens.

I still can't understand how Perth get away with the hand checks and rough D and then we get called for the softest calls. The refs then start to make up for it in the 4th when the game is over.

Anon, are you saying it's bad that R Hill isn't there anymore or was bad when he was there?

Two quick observations:

1. Perth is the favourite for the championship
2. Adelaide will not play finals

Without Balls you are an ABA side!

Helliwell almost got dunked on by Martin!

Crosswell, NG, Herbert are ABA players!

You still have to get the 2nd import spot right (Last year?)

Your import point guard is 5, 8'!

Can Marty coach?

Weak spots everywhere...

The only positive for Adelaide supporters is Perth played great & shot the ball at a wonderful clip! Unless Balls has a brilliant year & the 2nd import spot is filled correctly expect a few 30 point drubbings!!

Cmon guys,
we can't just keep bagging all our players. It was just the first game and our club mvp wasnt playing and another quality import to come. The 6ers have a bright future for this year.

Last nights game really showed what it means to have a core group of players together over a few years. Perth knew what to do and who could do it..Adelaide still looked like they were trying to figure each other out, which is BAD when your have a coach like Clark who should be an expert at building structure

Anon there's no doubt Adelaide will get better as i don't think it's possible to get any worse!!

Anon #333945 pretty much spot on mate. I would add that a big part of our defensive problems last night were caused because the only two bigs we have right now are too slow to guard Redhage or Wagstaff out on the perimeter. Same reason Wilkinson torched us last year. Perth just run a pick and pop with Redhage or Wagstaff - either we're forced to switch and they can shoot at will over one of our guards, or they isolate them one on one against Helliwell or DJ, who sag off because they don't want to get beat off the dribble. This is why I was saying before the game it was a bad idea to run Helliwell and DJ together.

The Sixers have to get better at defending simple pick and pop basketball and they also have to work really hard at their rotations until it becomes second nature to all of them. Right now, when teams go on a run, they just don't have the defensive cohesion to pull together and get a few stops to break the momentum.

Hopefully this new import will be here soon and can make a difference with regard to defensive mobility on guys like Redhage, Wortho, Wilko.

Adelaide seem to have too many 1-dimensional players to me. This makes them too easy to shutdown as a team, and with an organised unit like Perth, it was a bloodbath!

Warren - Didn't penetrate once
Johnson - Soft on D
Helliwell - No offence
Creek - No jumpshot
Ng - 3 point shooter only

You compare that to Perth players seem much more well rounded, and they also set up plays to work to their players strengths. That's what Adelaide are going to have to do if they want to go anywhere this season.

Cor blimey DM, you're a bit off on the Warren remark!
If you watched Warren closely, you would see that he could get anywhere he wanted on the court anytime he wanted. But he is actually smart - just like Mills he is too small to drive all the way to the basket and expect to score very often. Instead, he pulls up for his silky smoother jumper, which most of the time is nothing but net and a far more reliable weapon.

Posters see answers . " Bruce cain't play . Burston's too short. Helliwell's a dud. "

Perth played typical Perth D. Adelaide played typical Adelaide D. There's your difference.

Helliwell played some real solid inside D and as has been mentioned will only be a 10-15 minute player when we're at full strength. Handy one to have.

DJ, seriously. How hard is it to get a hand up on the perimetre. Just to raise your fucking arm. Does that really take that much effort? He's lucky Redhage didn't punish him more. His D is still atrocious all-round.

Wort game I've seen Weigh play I think. Looked reluctant to create his own shot and too reliant on cuts to find space, which failed with Tovey's fantastic D.

Herbie is still the best outside defender in the league IMO. Great effort at that end despite being a bit quiet at the other.

Warren: Great signs. Didn't do much wrong and was one of the few positives.

Creek: Was desperately hoping he found himself a jumper over the winter. Guess not.

Ng: don't have the numbers but did he reach 10 minutes? Gotta utilise that shot a bit better when he's on the floor too.

Crosswell: D was disappointing but other than that pretty much as expected.

Refs were pathetic but I think we're all used to now and they didn't change the result obviously. I've been saying it for three years but Ray Hunt should not be in the NBL. It's unbelievable how consistently shithouse he is while still retaining his spot. Phil Haines not much better. It'd just be good to see Crosswell be able to get away with the same stuff as Robbins and Martin.

Need import now.

X, Herbie has been good in the past, but he did get burned by Lisch early on in this game. Lisch was way too quick for him, which IMO is a big part of why Marty took him out of the game and played Crosswell alongside Warren. Hopefully Herbie just needs more games to get up to speed, but physically he didn't look great last night.

I must've missed a few of those Bean, my bad. I can only recall him being beaten off the dribble once.

Last night i only saw one team trying to win the game,and it wasn't Adelaide.OK we were missing a few players-noticeably Balanger,but truly where did everybody else s balls go on the night? Defense was disgusting the back ,front & side doors were left open.Passing was shithouse we can do a lot better than that.It was good to see a good crowd and i hope people keep coming.

Your right xztatic, if the refs were more consistent 36ers would have lost by 50!!

@anon Brad Hill has played for many coaches and has always shown that he can play. Consistency is what he needs and the minutes he will get by default in Cairns will hopefully help him with that.

Ok, to put missing Ballinger and Williamson into perspective:

Imagine Melbourne without Ubaka and Mills.
Imagine Sydney without Khazzouh and Grant.
Imagine Wollongong without Saville and Catron.
Imagine Gold Coast without Worthington and Hudson.
Imagine New Zealand without Wilkinson and Vukona.
Imagine Cairns without Crosswhite and Loughton
Imagine Townsville without Schenscher and Mims.
Imagine Perth without Redhage and Martin and Lisch.

Having 2 of your best players out and both of those players being the same position is a huge hole. Team balance is shot, you have players in positions they aren't used to, basically nothing fits.

Melbourne have Dorsey or Dillon running the point.
Sydney have Ratzsch and Iti in the big positions.
Wollongong still have Davidson and Forman, but don't have much of a bench.
Gold Coast have Petrie and Garlepp in the big positions.
New Zealand have Pledger and Anthony in the big positions.
Cairns have Rychart and Dowdell.
Townsville have Hinder/Holmes and Allen.
Perth have Robbins and Williamson.

Ballinger , Ng and Herbert are the only constants from previous coaches
All of them have played outside of Adelaide and to a level of success too.
Culture is a perception and not a problem.

Perth could lose two players and still do OK.

Now, I think we lost two pretty key spots and Perth are an incredibly strong team this year, but Perth could've shown up without Martin and Redhage and you would not see a team coughing up so many open looks. Plus, we were at home.

The issue as hendo has pointed out is that these players played the same spot.
Most teams could cover two injuries but not from the same position as we have.
We did not have a 4 man at all last night

As hendo said take Lisch and Martin out and Perth would be a completely different squad or Redhage and Wagstaff would be another example.

Even is Neville was out last night i think the game would have been a lot different. We would have been huge against them.

I disagree in Perth's case. Obviously having two PFs out hurt us and it'd probably hurt other teams too. But I think Perth would've still won convincingly if they were without Martin and Lisch, or Knight and Nevill or Knight and Wagstaff or whatever. They have good balance across the team and are that well drilled and confident from a hot pre-season, I don't think anything short of 2-3 major injuries or a semi-final implosion are going to stop them making the grand final.

The 36ers are not going to be the last team to look bad up against the Cats this year.

Isaac, everything you have said in your last post is true but this just confirms the problem lies with the coach, firstly for not being capable of putting a winning team together and secondly for not being able to coach a teamn into winning. I am not going to go off at the coach after the first game, but surely everyone saw last night's game as a continuation of the previous season rather than the start of a new. Despite being without Ballinger and a PF import, we were never going to win against a performance put in by Perth. I take my hat off to Perth and say to the 36ers, this is what you need to aspire to. Perth have set the bench mark this season.

last night was disgraceful but we can only go up. hopefully balls returns at full strength with a half decent import as well.
we also played the tipped number 1 team so it will get easier form here
my only comment with marty's coaching was why did we have at least one of our talls above the three point line

got distracted clicked post to soon

above the three point line all every time we came down the floor
warren looked fantastic loved him
weigh clearly had an off night

lets give it at least another month before we all freak out

Point I was trying to prove (which I thought was pretty clear) is that any team will seriously struggle without 2 of their best players. Especially when they are from the same position.
Perth have an incredible team where they can probably afford to lose 2 of their best from any position.
I'm not sold they would be that scary a prospect without Martin and Lisch, but each to their own.
Perth also have the luxury of having 9 of the 10 they ran with last year.
Last night, Johnson was the only player who was in our 10 at the end of last season. The sort of team chemistry Perth has simply can't be created in round 1.

Oh, yeah and Creek.
Forgot about him.

It's all Helliwell's fault . He loves setting screens
Only got 8points in half a game.
What difference which side you're on if you're sailing on the Titanic.

Does anyone check the actual height of imports before they come over here.....Warren is going to struggle playing men in professional basketball...this is not college ball anymore. Yes he has a good stoke when left open, but he will struggle to get it off against teams that are able to get over or sag off the screen. Defensively he will be abused (Robbins was first to post him up and he is not an offensive minded player). We will be extremely vulnerable in this position.

"X are you suggesting that Hebert is a better defender than Martin?"

Not as good a pesky, turnover-inducing defender as Martin or Robbins, but a better lockdown defender, yes.

Shit post all round, anon.

"There are way to many guards and none of them have any balls including Warren (who if you watch the one hd coverage you will hear Bevo saying that it Warren is anywhere on the court post him up.)"

He's what 178cm? The call to post him up is an obvious one that has nothing to do with his "balls". Despite that, he was hardly punished for his size. D-Mart went 1-7.

Somehow I don't think Janno is the player the club is intending to build a team around, not sure what you're getting at there other than a possible personal beef.

PS you forgot to bag Tom Daly in your post. Missed one.

It was a bad result and not a great performance in general from Adelaide, but as Boti pointed out in his article, Perth's margin total against Townsville and then Melbourne (not miles off full-strength) was 60+ points, and Melbourne had Mills, Ubaka, Dillon, Dorsey, etc.

Warren had 17 points at over 50% on debut, against the toughest guards in the league. He had one poor game during the pre-season. Yeah, he's short. So was David Bailey and he got it done in the NBL. Right now, I think Chris Warren is the least of our worries.

Rupert Sapwell - game commentator on the radio when they were talkin ' bout Smyth's new Basketball Academy
" At time outs he'd talk to his assistant coach for 45 seconds , then told us . 'You're all do very well'
Even when we weren't. "
Good game nite coverage with interviews - Batkovic Cox Clarke Ballinger Radford Bevo Leeanne Grantham
may have missed 1 or 2.

More likely that Warren doesn't penetrate because there are times when it'd be suicidal against taller plays. Different story in a broken play/transition I guess.

Doubt Creek was benched just for penetrating. Maybe for poor decision making (penetrating when he shouldn't have) or just as part of shuffling players looking for a working combo. Apart from the big dunk, I didn't think he did enough to demand court time. Herbert or Ng weren't any better unfortunately.

Can I start ref bashing yet?

That was a car wreck. Super Mario and Phil Haines were absolutely horrible.

The out of bounds call by Mr Moustache just before the travel make-up call at the other end was a seriously bad call. Everyone near me was slackjawed through shock. Can't believe it wasn't overruled by the ref on the other side who had reasonable position to see it.

If Vanderjagt was that good an option, why did no one pick him up? And why when he was finally signed due to serious injuries, did he only get four minutes in a team down their two primary bigs?

Doubt anyone became a Helliwell fan over the weekend, but he wasn't abysmal and won't be playing 15+ minutes when Ballinger and an import are there.

If you expect 25 minutes and 15 points, 8 rebounds from Helliwell, then you're an idiot.
He's here as our 4th big. He is there as a big body to set screens, fill up the key and basically do what Paul Rees used to do (probably not to that level).
Ballinger and Johnson were signed to provide offense. Helliwell was signed to provide defense and size.
I'd be surprised if he averages more than 15 minutes this season and I don't expect much more than than above things from him.

Thank god someone spoke up about the awful reffing Loco. Haines was once a good ref, however has fallen into the trap of being a toss when it comes to calls.
Benn McDonald is the worst in the league as far as I am concerned. He couldnt ref to save his life and Ray Hunt is too old.

As for us, well there arent too many diamonds in the rough its gotta be said. First quarter was ok, but ball handling errors/turnovers :(

Helliwell is a player to whom is a cheap buy, cant do much except screen and doesnt get inside for a rebound. Why did we buy him?

Weigh and Herbert I like in the team. I think they are both valuable. Give some time with these guys. If Hill got 3 season to get ti right after being injury prone, then herbert gets at least 1 year.

Creek, just a bad game all round. Nothing major there to speak of.

Who's the rookie, no 32?

Daly should have gotten more time on the floor given we were only trailing by 27 at 3/4 time or so.

lastly, the coach. They hit two 3's in succession, down by 10. Timeout? Nope! Lets play on to get further behind. Sure enough, time out call down by 15. Gee whiz. Not good entertainment that one

Helliwell provided screens for Warren which enabled him to score so well. He should do it for Ng. If all he does is set screens which results in other players scoring and pick up the odd rebound, he has done his job.

It's not the same thing. Say the guy's said x was benched for shooting at all, and I've suggested he might've been benched for taking a bad shot (a long, fadeaway two early in the shot clock, when a teammate was open under the basket).

Whether benching is detrimental is a separate issue and not something I'm going to judge here: I wasn't tracking Creek's subs, and I'm not the coach so I don't know whether that was a regular substitution or not. I doubt any coach putting Creek into the game would be discouraging him from playing his natural game. Hill, for example, penetrated all last season and I didn't see him discouraged from doing so.

Coaches can't win in these situations. Leave someone out there and they're criticised for throwing good time after bad. Take them off, and maybe they didn't give the guy a chance to get into the game.

---

Check Creek's lines in the play-by-play. Played a good amount of contiguous time in the first half (across the end of the first quarter and start of the second). In one patch, picked up a foul and then missed two free throws, but wasn't subbed out. Played the final 4-5 minutes of the third without a stat, but wasn't subbed out.

Started the fourth. Turnover at 8:33. Had that steal-and-then-charge at 7:02 (out-smarted by the defender). The big dunk was at 5:15. Missed a shot at 4:36, subbed out 4:17.

Looks like the regular pattern of playing him, then letting him rest, to me. Played more in the fourth than in the second.

Creek got all the minutes he deserved and more. See Isaac's post above. He is nothing more than a limited role player with potential at the moment and he should be played as such.

On the other hand, the guy who said Creek has failed to develop also needs to show a bit of patience. He has played less than 20 NBL games, having come straight from the AIS. Give him a chance to develop!

Judging by the way he brought the ball up against Perth, he has already started improving his ball-handling. We haven't seen much evidence of an improved jumper yet, but that's going to take time.