I think the key to this game is Gibson shutting down Ervin. If that can happen and then whoever is matching up on Nevill can make it really hard for him to get the ball where he wants it then the 36ers should get this.

Can the 36ers win a game based on defence??

Jack Toft I haven't laughed at an airball since uuummmm.... Crosswell last week that's right!

Yes, should've had the Cats by 5-10. Should've.

Surely this one's a win. Can't pencil it in, but anything less than a win would be catastrophic in the scheme of the season.

Nevill has historically eaten Schensch's lunch.

He is a much better player since he last played in the NBL. So I think he gets the better of that matchup. What he delivered last week against Melbourne was the best I've seen him play in this league.

Crocs are just a completely different team with a target down low.

That said, they still have a whole bunch of guys that simply don't play hard enough.

Stll, I wouldn't be suprised if Townsville takes this one.

Ervin and Nevill are in great form, while the Sixers are slumping somewhat. Lots of pressure on Adelaide and none on Townsville.

Will be a close game.

Gibbo playing?

Stick with my : Perth =loss , Crocs = loss. NZ = a win , with this crazy team . Gibson hip , unlikely
probably our best player .

Even without Gibbo this team is FAR MORE TALENTED than the Crox.

While Neville will be better than Schensh, Neville is hardly a big scorer (barring last week). TSV back up is Ben Allen! Enough Said. ADL back up is Petrie ffs.

DJ should own Hinder.

Weigh's shooting should draw Holmes further out reducing his chances of rebounding.

Creek should be given Crawford, given Crawf's shooting slump, they should cancel each other out.

Poor Cadee will have a hard time covering Ervin.

Ohh I forgot...Massingale would have been handy in this game as well to cover for Gibbo.

You are hoping your team will lose in the hope your coach will get sacked?

Isn't that counter-productive?

He wont be sacked. its because of money right now

Camby: Ben Allen is not nevill's back up. Last week he didn't even get a run. Hinder is. Nevill and Holmes both play big minutes with hinder backing up both of them and switching between the 4 and 5. And Holmes is not a SF so won't be matching up against Weigh at all.

Mick, Weigh plays some PF.

I knew he did last year but haven't seen him play the four this season with Adelaide's stacked frontline.

Obviously I've only seen a handful of Adelaide games though.

The key to beating the Crocs is getting off to a hot start. A team like this that is only just starting to learn how to win doesn't know how to dig itself out of a hole yet.

Hit them hard and hard early and they will roll over.

If you keep them in reaching distance, Ervin can win it by himself. He has shown several times this season that he can rattle off ten quick points in a matter of possessions in crunch time.

How much has Weigh played 4?

I've seen Adelaide with:

Schensh & DJ
Schensh & Petrie
DJ & Petrie

Does he play with DJ or Schensh more as a 4? Or do they go real small with Petrie & Weigh?

interesting!

With the Hawks, you could hack Ervin and he was a bit shaky with his FTs in the clutch, but his numbers are good this year - 80%+.

What's the latest on Gibson, game could swing on whether he plays.

Ervin is a more well-rounded player this go around.

His scoring might not be as dazzling but he is making a genuine effort on the defensive end and his shooting has vastly improved. He still runs hot and cold from deep but his mid range and free throw shooting is pretty damn good.

So if Gibbo is out with a sore hip, starting lineups?

5: Luke vs Luke
4: DJ vs Holmes
3: Stevie vs Blanchfield
2: Creeky vs PC
1: Mungo vs Ervin

Petrie
Crossy
Daly
Pero

Or does Crossy start over Creeky?
Who gets Ervin? Creeky? or would you throw Tommy Daly to the wolves and put him on Ervin and make Ervin just run until his legs drop off? If Daly made him look stupid, one month would not be long enough.

Jack Toft....I'd have Creeky guarding Ervin and hope his length and athleticism troubles Ervin somewhat?! PC isnt quite the slash to the basket player he once was and Cadee should have the speed to close out on him on the perimeter.

Just my 2 cents worth. :)

Is this the game going to be shown on one hd?

The TV games are Friday and Sunday.

Tornado, you would have to give Creeky the job wouldn't you

Camel31; Gibbo is our best player by far

As far as tomorrow goes, should be another nailbiter. Odds suggest the Crocs are a good chance

Crocs by 12 +!!!!

It sounds like Gibson will play tonight

"Adelaide had a minor scare with co-captain Adam Gibson (hip) earlier this week but the 36ers' most inspirational player is in no doubt."

can anyone confirm things haven't changed and that he isn't playing?

Def playing

Sixers should win this quite easily I think. They will be pumped up for a big game after last weeks devastating loss.

I think we will see 4 great quarters by the Sixers with the odd Crosswell blunder :P

Sixers by 8. Weigh to play 33 minutes

The 6ers have gievn no indication they should win anything lately. Im totally on the fence about this one. I cant see Adelaide beating a team with as many offensive weapons as the Crocs have. Its games like this when things happen throughout the contest, and Clarke is way to late to react and change the game plan. So no matter what long odds there are, id say this is a genuine toss of the coin. Even though Adelaide should win comfortably.

23-8. Sack Marty.

Townsvilles starting five is actually better than adelaides; its just that their bench is ten times worse and plays dumb to boot..

Please woolpert just play the starting five for the whole second half. I can't take another Russell hinder turnover-to-opposition-fast-break-and-1 or another crocs loss.

Watching the scoring development line graph alone you can tell who's on thwarted court. It's uncanny.

*the court.

The box score makes for bad reading. Looks like Creek sh*t in Marty's bed again, and Weigh pulled out whatever he's holding to earn court time.

Poor shooting from Weigh and Gibson, combined 3/19. At least Gibson seems to be contributing on other fronts, 8 dimes and 5 rebounds (4 turnovers).

Interested to hear why the f*** Weigh plays 35 minutes with a terrible line and pathetic shooting (looks like none of the guards and SF bar Creek can shoot) and Creek plays 18 minutes with a pretty damn good line.

TR, I don't think Creek would have been much use playing any additional minutes tonight. The boxscore doesn't quite tell the whole story.

Weigh 9pts 2/8 4rb 2a 0st in 35:10 mins

Creeky 11pts 4/5 3rb 1a 3st in 19:12 mins

Meanwhile the gap between 4th and 5th gets even bigger.

Thanks Dan, the box scores makes for horrendous reading. Were Gibbo, Johnson and Weigh chuck bricks all night?? 11 from 44 from at trio. Disgusting..

TR Creek injured himself in the fourth looked like an achilles.
Gibbo hit a massive clutch three, then we dont box out on the 2 missed foul shots and Jacob boards it the hits the foul shots (bet he loved that!).
Then we draw up a play for DJ to have to dribble then pull up for 3! Why not Gibbo who was clutch FFS!

Looks like goodbye finals for another year with Sydney beating Hawks and the gap widening. Sixers rarely win away from home (and looks like cant win at home either) so another wasted season

Can we trade Ben Allen or Russell hinder for any number of the efficient professional ball players that are contributing absolutely nothing to the talent stifling Marty Clarke 3 step program? Cheers. Happy to take Petrie or Creek, or pretty much anyone from your bench. Yes, even Pero. We will throw in Larry Abney to sweeten the deal. Three for one.

Thanks DB... What was the crowd like at the end???

i watched online and they were screaming for blood! Sounded like a decent number but not sure of numbers though mate.

My guesstimate is 4350 . They were pretty good in support for the sixers . No real emotion at the end.
Most are good looking girls .

"Why not Gibbo who was clutch FFS!"

2-16 13% isn't very clutch

Before you guys call for Marty's head (again), perhaps you need to review DJ's effort in the last minute.

He was responsible for blocking out on the Cedar free throws, he let Holmes get it.

He had the 3pt play drawn for him, he decided to head fake the guards when he is 6'10 and got the ball stripped.

TR, crowd was pretty supportive until it was beyond hope (or when it required a prayer) and then it was that lull of "Feel sad, but not surprised. Wonder if Marty will get sacked after this?" Team were still cheered off court, at least from what I could hear in my area.

Gibson said something on the mic after the game to the tune of thanking fans for their support.

The 36ers are in deep shit. Sorry, I don't normally swear on here but this is getting beyond a joke and its worse because we actually have a pretty good roster who SHOULD be winning.

Our under played, under paid import is let go on the recommendation of a coach who seemingly has trouble accepting that what he's done for the past 2 and a bit years has simply not worked. Yet he won't change his game plan, just the players.

Our CEO resigns a week later.

We're now in a 4 game slump, including losing twice to the bottom team who were 0-10 before beating us to start our slump and their own revival. What price we end up below the Crocs on the ladder come the end of the season?

Since we beat Perth twice in a week, the Wildcats have won 5 and we've lost 4. WTF is going on????

On the plus side, the crowd was 4,493 which is our 2nd highest for the year (the Hawks game attracted 4,720). Going into the game I thought we'd have struggled to get more than 4K through the doors tonight so a great effort by the fans of the 36ers to still support their team. Just a pity that once more their effort was rewarded with yet another home loss under Marty "I won't change my coaching no matter how much we lose" Clarke.

In the game report on the NBL website Clarke confirmed that Mitch Creek has ruptured his achilles like Crosswell did last year so forget him for the rest of the season unfortunately. It makes Clarke look like a complete fool for cutting CJ Massingale doesn't it (CJ probably feels for his now ex-team mates but I doubt he's shedding a tear for Clarke and his mate Radford). Not that Clarke needs much help looking like a fool, his NBL coaching record and his attitude towards both it and the 36ers fans shows that all too well.

I wonder what Boti will have to say in his article on the game? Should be interesting.....

Other than all that, I'm not going to comment on the players performance because I haven't seen the game (couldn't afford to go) and didn't see it online. Though from the stats it looked like Schenscher at least had a decent game leading the scoring and rebounding for the 36ers, and keeping Luke Nevill relatively quiet.

Holden, the battle of the Lukes was actually pretty entertaining. Ervin had an amazing start, Sixers kept leaving the corner three open, and Crocs got out to a 15 point lead at one point. Adelaide clawed it back and had the lead for a while. Crawford then hit a few shots and we gave up an o-board which we shouldn't have.

Certainly didn't close out the game well.

Me , I didn't expect to win , sat under the backboard behind the cheerleaders . Ervin opened up a big lead.
Creek got it back. Heard a coupla slaps on Ervin drives , at the end he gave one back to Gibson , a bitta booing Ervin in the end ...and some cheerleaders to lead me off in a cheerful dance

Boti's article is up. Fairly regular report.

I am gutted for Mitch Creek, more so than losing our 4th in a row or how the club is generally going or even wanting to bag Marty Clarke. A lot of us 36ers fans, myself included, have been pushing here and elsewhere for him to get more court time for a while now. He finally gets his chance (though not under the best circumstances with CJ's sacking) and he goes down for the season with an injury that no one could have seen coming.

No disrespect to CJ Massingale intended but we are definitely going to miss Mitch more than we will CJ.

I think I can sum my feelings up in one way......Ah shit.

wtf, can beat the Wildcats twice but get thrashed by Melbourne and drop 2 games to Townsville? :facepalm:

Let's get one thing straight. You didn't lose to the 0-10 Crocs.

That team had Ben Allen as its starting centre.

The 3-0 Crocs have Luke Nevill in career form as their starting big man with Ben Allen getting 0 minutes last week and 3 this week. There's a big difference.

On top of that, Ervin has finally re-adjusted to the league and is finally settled into his role (remember he didn't go through training camp).

Outside of Norton, Townsville's bench is atrocious, which is why Adelaide was repeatedly allowed back into the game. The commentators would say "oh Adelaide are really clawing their way back into it with some strategic defense" when it was really just that the Townsville bench was on and coughing up unforced errors and chucking shots at the rim.

This starting five is one of the best in the league, if not THE best.

The bench is just that bad...

Was interesting watching Gibson get forced to do that talk at the end... He really didn't want to... and I don't blame him. I have to say I've liked Gibsons body language this year. Doesn't sulk or whinge just goes about it.

Absolutely.

Gibbo was the only guy that played with urgency and heart last night. The other guys seem to need a reason to get up for a close game, and the coaches don't seem to have that sort of motivational ability - which is absolutely crucial for managing a deep, stacked roster, almost more so than Xs & Os.

Also: one game, fifteen threads. Fifteen!

Come on guys...

Interesting things that I got out of last nights game, the 36ers are not working as a team Gibbo telling DJ to clear out of the key and he just stood there not listening to the play being directed by our guard how dumb was that. Gibbo giving DJ a serve, DJ sulking most of the game starting to impact the team.

Luke finally getting it done! Kudos to him and Gibbo.

Is it me or does Cadee play a little soft on defence I am not sure he is all that people say he is lots of flash but little substance at times.

Mitch going down and can't remember seeing one team mate walk over and see how he was. But the opposition coach/players did! pretty sad support from the club I know where I would playing next season if I had a choice and it wouldn't be Adelaide.

The whole lack of urgency from the 36ers coaches/doctors to assist Mitch was pretty poor as well.

KJ, I know he had shot shit but that shot over Nevill was a clutch ballsy shot. To have Marty then draw up a play for DJ to put the ball on the floor to me was bewildering. Either call the play for the guy who just kept you in the game and hopefully has just switched his radar on (finally), or maybe have DJ flare to the corner to get the pass for the 3.

Not have him(DJ)put it on the floor out the top surrounded by small guards.

Just my thoughts on the last play.

Re Johnson's last play:

Drawn up by coach or initiated by the player, either way it was the wrong decision at the time, but to rely on such a shot to tie the game confirmed that things went astray well before that point.

At about the 5 minute mark of the last quarter I turned to a mate and suggested that Peter Crawford was about to have a significant influence on the outcome of the game. I call it an educated guess more than a lucky hunch because too often in tight games I've seen the Sixer's lose leads due to the opposition stringing together consecutive, or near to consecutive, successful 3 point bombs. The Sixers seem to struggle stopping these types of shots in the closing minutes of close games.

Now my two cents worth (and it's a little lenghty so my apologies):

The endeavour and belief among the team and coaching staff that they'll get past this untimely rut is apparent, and commendable, but I'm inclined to believe they don't recognise what the team's real need (and with respect to the organisation I accept that yes, this is little more than another opinion for someone who is nothing other than an armchair expert!).

Nevertheless I've form my opinion on observation and the club's recent focus on finding an import who is a knock down shooter and can also create their own shot (which is a challenge to find in any circumstance).

While I can understand why the organisation believe they need a player like this, I don't actually think this is their most critical need; I think another lockdown guard based defender with a reliable long range shot should be their focus, moreso now with Creek going down.

The team is, in my humble opinion, too reliant on Gibbo in the closing minutes, i.e. defend the best opposition guard, make big plays, control the offence.

The addition of defensive guard specialist with range would make the team more capable of locking down the most threatening shooter on the opposition team. It has been those type of players who have been most effective for opposition teams in many of the close loses I have witnessed in recent times.

Sadly neither Cadee (at this point, but I hold hope for the future) or Crosswell address this need nor does Weigh (but not due to his lack of effort). Creek was usually sitting on the pine in the final minutes, which I put down to his limited shooting range.

Having both Gibbo and a specialist guard defender will allow the talls to protect the key and give Weigh an opportunity to focus on guys like Abercrombie, Saville, Blanchfield and Redhage (small forwards who can hit from range with a good clip but won' necessily beat him off the dribble).

The Sixers have done enough for most of their games to suggest to me their most pressing need isn't a 'go to guy' who can be a game winner at the offensive end, I believe this is suitably covered by the offensive talents within the team. I think their search should be for a different type of player, one who is a game saver, because too many games have been stolen away by opposition shooters.

BigAds, I agree with most of what you are saying. Gibson is asked to do too much and Cadee isn't ready yet, so we need a starting quality guard. Defence is important from this player, sure, but I think some of the problems the Sixers face on the defensive end are related to our bigs not being either quick enough (Luke) or savvy enough (DJ) to get to the right position often enough with their help D. (Hence opponents getting open looks at threes late in games.)

I think you also nailed it when you mentioned why Creek is not seeing many minutes late in games. If he could shoot, he'd be out there. For that reason, I agree with you, the SG HAS to be a good 3pt shooter. Ideally, we need a go-to scorer though, who can also score on drives and pull up jumpers, because that would take so much pressure of Gibbo, who just is not a great natural scorer. I'd love Gibbo to be able to just run the offence and play great D, instead of feeling like he has to try to score all the time as well.

Ive gotten to the stage that the sixers are all about entertainment. Yeah its great to walk away with a win, and a smile but if you get involved, then its a good night out. If not, a waste of money.

We are at a point where finals wont happen. Sydney are Wins in front. Simple really. We have a crap coach, they have a hated one but he knows his stuff.

What irks me more was that Gibbo came out at the end and thanked the crowd for their support. Thats great, but if it were to have meaning, perhaps Captain Clarke would be a better choice. But then again, Clarke is much like the Captain of the Costa Concordia. All wind in his sails until busted.

He was taped, but doesn't mean he was carrying an injury. You can't predict Achilles breaks

bigads and beantown - Creek is the best shooter on the team - 66% from the field this season. No other player is above 46%. He is also the 4th most efficient scorer - about 2.5 minutes per point. The players who score faster are Johnson (1.9 minutes but at less than 40%), Petrie (2.4 minutes at ~46%) and...wait for it...Massingale (2.4 minutes per point at ~42%).

Most professional sports people such as basketball players and footballers (of any code) wear strapping around their ankles for added support which is probably why Creek was taped.

Unless Creek had previous Achilles trouble no one could have known his injury was going to happen. Even if he did have some sort of ankle injury going into the game against Townsville he was obviously cleared to play by the medical staff. And from the replays I have seen it didn't seem to affect him until that point.

If you look at how he did it, he tried to push off his left leg with his heel still flat on the floor. Even if he wasn't carrying an injury, from that sort of flat foot start a ruptured Achilles can easily happen.

maybe Petrie can give advice to Mitch in rehab. considering he did he achillies last season or the season before. His happened exactly the same way - just a push off the back foot to head back down court.