Breakers by 5

Well I'll be damned , Ten/One ADL don't advertise Basketball very much , but pretty good to be able to watch it now . Me I expected NZ to win in NZ and Perth to win in Perth .

Terrible Standard, poor shooting and lots of turnovers!!!

Okay, so it is very low scoring and level at half time, sorry if I have spoilt it for anyone but really, is this basketball or jungle ball?

Some call it intense, I only see messy, turnover riddled ball being played with very little emphasis on skill and ability!

Harsh, but what else can you call this...?

29 all at half time... Gee what an entertaining sport!!! Bring back 48 minutes and let it be a free flowing game and we might actually get some supporters back!!!

Agree Bear :(

How hard is it to take it to the hole

Lets see how gracious the Perth crowd is this time!!!

Huge win, crazy last few minutes. Lemanis just secured the Boomers job :)

That game was very exciting to watch. Great crowd and atmosphere came across on screen. I was wishing I was there.

Game was extremely rough and there could have been a few more fouls called on both sides. Either way can anyone see any other team competing with these two teams. Great game and GF series.

How brilliant was that!!

4th year of crowd growth.
Shut up haters!!

I think this glorification of intensity makes for rough and ugly basketball and this was one of the roughest games I've seen. So much left unwhistled, but then both teams have been angling for this style for a while and they've got it.

Had to laugh at the scuffle where Robbins shoved the ref who was trying to break up the wrestling. Surely a fine for that?

Reminded me of the video where Chris Paul gets bumped incidentally by a ref during a dead ball situation and makes as though he's going to flop, then realises it was a ref just in time.

Both teams played hard to the end
Great Game :)
Who ate all the red confetti and popped the red ballons?
Let down

apparently cj bruton can stop play because the ball is sweaty and goal tendings are fictional

alexkrad go watch the reply it wasn't goal tending. If there was lots of sweat on the ball and one of the Perth players did that it would be fine as well

Fantastic season by the Breakers! 4 losses all season, solid contributions from the starters and also from the bench! After championship #1 their were concerns that a 'Penney-less' Breakers could not repeat, then after championship #2 people said that a 'Wilkinson-less' Breakers may struggle, but no matter the challenge or margin (Adelaide -21, Townsville and others) the team held strong!

YEAH BREAKERS!!

Keep talking up the Breakers mate... Get your whole nation behind them, Wildcats all the way.

Obv
iously I should say well done NZ

Winning in Perth is the icing on the cake. Unbelievable season to watch unfold.

I just hope that we have another one (season) with the financial issues Townsville is having.

Three quarters of ugly + more ugly, frustration ending up in the only possible result, a scuffle and shoving match.

Then we finally saw some basketball in the final quarter, that is what we liked to see and will probably remember when we look back on a tight finish and reasonable ending to what should be a highlight of our season here in Aus!

Well done to the Breakers, but let's not overlook what went on in this game...

Yes a very ugly and continually interrupted game to watch. Oh for the good old days of high scoring, free flowing NBA like basketball.

MVP Jackson seems to have a real ugly shot and could'nt hit the side of a barn even at the foul line for most of the game yet was still very effective and Lische seemed a bit rattled this game.

CJ has slowed down a fair bit but still hit some big 3's.

Other teams will have to put their thinking caps on next year to have any chance of stopping this Breakers dynasty.

Not the greatest game to watch but the best result.
two words my partner said towards wildcats; bridesmaids again.

Great effort by the Breakers to win three Championships in a row - well done Coaches & Players.

But the fact is very few fans other than from these two teams have been interested in the Grand Final games this year and the previous two years.

And its reflected by the viewers ratings & media coverage. Good Local coverage only for either teams.

If these two teams played the next three Grand Finals series they may well be great games but know would care or watch.

One of my teenage boys came over to the coach, sat down to watch some of the game with me, then the shoving match broke out...

He looked at me and said; 'Even the fight is pretty average dad!'

This is a kid who loves the sport, but can't watch a whole game of NBL because it just doesn't hold his interest.

SEABL is more enjoyable, sorry, if I want to watch this type of game I would subscribe to Ice Hokey or the WWE!!

Ice Hokey is also low scoring with plenty of physicality while there are almost as many flops in the WWE as there is in the NBL these days IMO...

Hocky!

Hockey maybe...

I agree Bear - I don't think my teanage son has watched an NBL game in years and he has played junior rep for years but has no interest in our National League but watches NBA & College games regularly.

I've managed to watch a couple of the SEABL games on streaming this season and they have been more enjoyable to watch.

Not sure why our NBL has become so physical its almost become a wrestling match at times and very few of the players can score regularly.

Bit like the AFL in recent years with the flooding & mass of players around the ball - its not a great spectacle to watch at times.

Terribly inconsistent refereeing. Ugly basketball from the Wildcats, per usual.

Loved the intensity. Loved the unpredictability down the stretch. LOVE the result!

It was a shame that KK HAD to mention the NBL's continued growth etc.

BA's misguided attempt to allow a free-flowing game were really exposed on Friday. Call the fouls that are clearly there and the slug fests will subside in time.

You have to do that in the regular season too. This was basically the latest stage of evolution in the NBL game. Foul out stars at the start and you risk ruining a massive spectacle.

Maybe another problem is benches running often a legit ten deep? Is there that much of a penalty in losing Wagstaff when Hire can step in and soak up fouls, or Trueman or Tovey?

I think the NBL should very quickly look at rules that hamper overly strong team defense. I can see this game being just the beginning.

On the last Perth possession, when Lisch was bumped in the backcourt, would that have been a foul in the regular season or in another league or country?

Agreed, Isaac. The refereeing was consistent with the rest of the season: allowing excessive and unnecessary contact. I describe it as 'consistently inconsistent'.

I felt that game 2 was beyond anything we've experienced thus far in the NBL with regards to physicality, and hope that was enough to spark action from BA for next season.

It's really only Perth that utilizes its bench to absorb fouls. Beyond them I think only New Zealand were be capable of doing so successfully.

The play from guys like Redhage, Wagstaff and Hire are products of Perth's system. If more fouls are called I could see that strategy losing favor.

FWIW - a quick look at the NBL historical stats shows the average number of fouls per 10 minutes of game time was 9.5 for 2013, 8.2 in 2003 and 6.6 in 1993.

So the sense that refs are not calling stuff, which I share, is interesting. They seem to be calling a lot more than they did 10 and 20 years ago.

So refs are calling more fouls and teams are fouling even more! I'd love to see the stats on players fouled out per game over the same period but I don't have the data to do that. I suspect it hasn't changed much. I don't have the sense of players fouling out much this past season but it was fairly common back in the 1990s.

If that suspicion is right, it would make Isaac's proposition about depth of benches more plausible.

Well in the NBL's history the average number of Aussies in the league is around 100, whereas this season it is 60, that makes Isaac's point very well.

We failed to replace the brilliant referees which helped make the NBL in the 80's. Weeks game management combined with Love's technical knowledge had a good batch of support referees around them.

The group which should of followed them left the game before getting the opportunity (except Haynes) and therefore we lost that link into the next generation.

Unfortunately there are not enough old respected guys left in the league and refs like Aylen and Geisch need to cover the short-fall. I liked Boecker in the Semi's, but not sure why he didn't get the grand final.

Anyone believe the reduction in alcohol consumption between players, coaches and referees have anything to do with the complete dysfunction between the parties? I am lost on how to fix it.

Not sure what you're suggesting re Tovey and Corletto. That one shouldn't be a seven?

Not too fussed about a top two team being cramped up with their selections because of the cap - that's the point. They brought in Carter who did just fine. Massingale was shooting pretty poorly in Adelaide.

They could've dumped someone else to keep Dunigan with Knight and obviously didn't want to as Knight is the superior player in their eyes.