Anstey isn't better than that...

Don't worry Melbourne fans, if you have a bad year you can just swoop in and buy wilbekin and craig just like you did with Ubaka, Dorsey and Dillon a few years ago. We're basically just your feeder club.

No offensive direction from Anstey resulted in 5 guys passing the ball around the arc before throwing a brick up. So much for Perth & Melbourne being clearly ahead of the rest of the league.

yes round #1 and only 1x game each but surely if you are so clearly far above the opposition you could get a win at home as opposed to getting your backside spanked?

I do think Perth will make some adjustments and be fine and will compete for another title but not so convinced with Melbourne and Chris Anstey.

It's not just Anstey. Barlow and Kickert are soft, I can't believe Kickert is marquee. Wortho and Walker the only ones with a bit of mongrel in them.

Cairns had an effective plan to push and test what the refs would call that other teams have not even considered as they are working on last years premise of fast transition and reduced body contact to make an exciting game.. Cairns have loads of big tough and rough, I say rough bodies who are happy to run through and over players, set persistent double and moving screens that refs ignore and are hot shots all round with impenetrable zone due to size and width and other teams lack of outside game, again due to expecting a penetrating game with dunks, tricks and highlights....

NBL needs to clear this up right now as if the teams and there will be more were aware that the refs were going to allow the contact and inconsistency on calls ( I also include the new interpretation on flopping and offensive fouling )
then perhaps they may have picked a different team.

While we can say yes they shot well and were aggressive, if you pitch 2 Cairns teams against each other you would have a the boring Zone and outside shot game we use to have that we moved away from.

The teams that will beat this are the other teams with mobile bigs. That is No 1 New Zealand and maybe Perth. Good luck to the rest of you. Unless the reffing is on it in the first beat them up with hip and shoulders I don't think anyone has a chance unless they can drag Chris Goulding back and set a double screen for him.

Expecting some serious letters going to the NBL Head ref for clarifications...

Wortho is a weird combination of being really tough and nasty but also really lazy. He's a rare breed.

Yeah... United will not win the title this year.

I said that before the season, and I'm saying it now.

Their offense, as Mystro said above, is just pass the ball around until the shot clock gets down to single digits and then chuck up a contested brick. And they are a shambles on the other end as well, just like last year.

Please, please, no Goorgian, not even in jest ... not if you want basketball rather than rugby or martial arts.

If you think Cairns was bad - and I didn't think they were particularly physical, though the hip thrust on the screen needs to be wiped out quickly - try, if you can, to think back to the 'Goorgian era', then vow never to go there again. The sport in Australia, particularly our refereeing,is still trying to recover from his cynical 'hit and keep on hitting until the refs give up and it becomes the norm' philosophy.