Creative writing but drivel.

United was honourable in defeat against Perth.

Cairns are slight favourites for mine, mostly because they smashed United in the first 2 games.

It's all about style for United this season. Plan A, B and C has to be run and gun, run and gun, run and gun. If the Taipans control the tempo and turn this into a half court grind then they should win this, and if United can push the ball and get enough transition points then they should win.

I can't see Cairns losing this one, but will be interesting as it is the first game on Margaret Court Arena - a great set up too for hoops.

Cairns by 3 points.

Odds: Melbourne United $1.85, Cairns Taipans $1.95

The odds suggest Melbourne are favourites...hmmm...

Preview: Cairns to bounce back against floundering United

Special BUY ONE GET ONE FREE ticket offer: Use promo code: MUPNR12 via ticketek.com.au to redeem

I think Melbourne by 5

Nice to see you thinking of the hearing impaired folk in your write up, Jack. The idea of the Bee Gees signing their harmonies conjures up images of Robin Gibb with his trademark hand on one ear. It all becomes clear to me now!

Love your work

:)

LC, as I said I agree Cairns should be slight favs, but you are over rating them in your review.

Right now the best team is NZ- not Cairns! Cairns have been disappointing across their last 2 games, except one blistering quarter against the Kings.

Not my review mate - just shared it!

Nice effort Jack.

Just have the feeling Melb are going to put it together on the big stage.

Melb by 7

Very sparse crowd

Finally not playing around a bike track.....

10,000 members in a city of 4.25 million in the basketball capital of Australia they all keep on saying.... Yet only 2000 fans in a new stadium to watch the only professional basketball team in the state. How does that work.

Great idea. Blame the NBL for scheduling a game maybe 6 months ago, Vs a fight that didn't exist then. Miss something? Yep a brain.

Clearly you have no idea about how far ahead bball schedules happen either.

Anyone else prepared to say Scottie Wilbekin isn't the messiah? The Taipans, half the league and 90% of the pundits just believed he was.
Scottie's team-mates have been the first to figure it out. That's why they are so tentative right now. 7 of 10 are the old Taipans; why would they play any different without a true stud player? Craig is up there (!?) with Edwards; Wilbekin should now acknowledge he wasn't ready for The Draft.
Cairns are The Pretenders.
Unitiggers may become Unitigers.

You guys really don't understand how bookies work.

In a game like this the winning strategy is to have half the cash on each side of the bet and then you just grab the 'juice'.

Bookies don't make markets around who they think is going to win, they make markets around what will make the most money.

Big second half by United to get the win. Proved me wrong.

Chris Patton graduated from UC Riverside where he put up some very tidy numbers. Brother of AFL footballer...

Game of two halves. 39:45 in first; 52:31 in the second.

Wortho MASSIVE game. Melbourne's 3 point shooting and better % got them the game in the end.

When Melbourne hit their threes they are very hard to beat - 14/28 last night.

Good to see the coach knows something about the game and the personnel involved.
"When asked after the win what Worthington meant to the group, United interim coach Darryl McDonald replied:

"Can't you see the smile on my face?

“He is the heart and soul of this group, along with Nate (Tomlinson)."

I guess the detractors here need to learn eh

Never believe the crowd figures as they are doctored if on the low side.

I don't think there are many detractors of Worthington's performances this year, in fact I think most people are recognising how well he is playing.

But that doesn't mean criticism of performance in previous years is suddenly invalid, in fact it highlights what Wortho could have been doing the past few years.

For what it's worth my top five players so far would be 1 Childress 2 Gibson 3 Jackson 4 Worthington 5 Wilbekin

I loved Margaret Court Arena as a venue for United. Perfect size, great looking, good lighting, nice food options, decent bar. Having never been to the tennis before I did find it a little bit tricky to locate the entrance but wasn't wandering around for hours.

It was a shame that the debut at such a nice venue had to occur on a Wednesday night. The game was never going to draw big crowds - the main reason being during the school term the majority of families with school age kids won't go. United had a cute gimmick of handing out letters from Mark Worthington saying please excuse my lateness at school, I was at the basketball, but in reality that's not actually going to fly with the school teachers!

Having the Mundine fight on next door certainly didn't help the situation either. A Saturday night unveiling of the excellent new venue would have been a much more appealing prospect for punters. I have no doubt they could have filled it on a Saturday night.

"I think the bookies don't really care or have no time to really research NBL and put out at times these odds that don't make sense... hey don't get me wrong I'm not complaining :D"

Yes I think you are complaining right now.

There has been very bizare odds this NBL season however usually the bookies have been right.

"Anyone else prepared to say Scottie Wilbekin isn't the messiah?" Wilbekin is a very good import however teams have had more time to scout him now.

Guys, Wilbekin's 3pt percentage has read 46, 36 and 39 per cent in his three seasons at Florida. The guy can shoot, it's only a matter of time and once that happens he'll be untouchable.

6-2, I aint throwing the Wilbekin out with the recycling yet.

We were in the game still with 4 minutes to go, despite not having anything drop after half time. Wilbekin let the refs & Wortho rattle him, he's learning give him some slack.

The league is close, Taipans were always going to drop a game or 2 when teams caught up. Now the chess game begins.

Why can't people give Melbs some credit, they played terrible for a half of bball, and worked it out, if Chris Goulding was having the season jordie mcrae was atm people would be saying he should be in the mvp race

McRae's start to the season was horrible. He's definitely starting to turn things around though, understanding that 20 points at 35% with five turnovers isn't going to get it done. From the outside it looks like D-Mac is doing a decent job of teaching him to pick his moments a bit better.

Melb def deserve credit. McRae was always going to be dangerous once they worked out how to use him (and he realized he was part of a team). That was always going to take time esp when Anstey left.

They were almost flawless in that 4th qtr.