Adelaide by 4.

carlin in for hodgson? that been confirmed?

carlin has showed a lot of promise in his few minutes he has played

should be a close one

but it certainly depends WHICH Adelaide rocks up?

heart says Adelaide but yeah depends on WHICH 36ers team rocks up...

Cairns have won 15 of their past 18 at home, with two of those losses to NZ, it will take a spectacular effort from Adelaide to win.

BTW the other one of those home losses was last year to Adelaide in OT. Maybe some hope for Sixers fans?

Carlin is away from the team at the moment. "No Legs" Sam Johns will travel to Cairns.

Cairns by 8

Cant see Cairns dropping this one at home. Also they are very consistent in what they do, and with the 36ers of late who knows which team will turn up and for how long a spurt. Hodgson will be a big loss, and wouldn't surprise me to see Burston on more gimmes than usual. Taipans at home by 11

Tough gig on the road for the Sixers. Don't write them off yet!

I am certainly disappointed Diesel Carlin isn't playing tonight. Cairns have some big units and his presence in the key is needed. The players over 200 tonight are:

Burston 212 cm, Trigger 207 cm, Loughton 206 cm, Wortho 203 cm, Weigh 200 cm.

DJ 212 cm, Peach 203 cm, Waxy 202 cm.

The Sixers will need to keep the game quick and stop Cairns from using their advantage around the rim. An interesting stat with the home games in Cairns. They certainly do well at home, but looking at the stats, their home score doesn't change much, but the output of visiting teams drops a lot. Could be the cheerleaders distracting them.

If Joey has only 9 players, then hoist the white flag. Take an early shower and have a Towhees beer shampoo. You need 10 to run the game, particularly if a fast transition is part of the game plan.

Let's go Sixers.

Weigh gotta a tip in and two free throws last game

Wow. I just realised how deep Cairns are.

Trigger, Loughton and Craig off the bench..all starting 5 calibre easily.

And just as i type this Heal mentions it.

Good start from Sixers. But with all three of our bigs on the floor to start the game, I'm pretty worried we're going to run out of gas in the 4th quarter!

For the 36ers:
DJ has 9 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists and 2 turnovers.
Randle - 7 points, 1 rebound.
Gibson - 6 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists and 1 steal.

For the Taipans:
Weigh has 6 points.
Burston - 4 points, 1 rebound and 1 block.
Gliddon has 2 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists.

Anyone have a stream? My trusty VipBox has failed me.

Make some subs JOEY!!!!!

36ers having a very poor second period. Score is now 35-all with 4:24 left.

Anything wrong with Sobey? He's pretty much fallen out of the rotation of late. You'd think, with Hodgson out, he'd be getting at least a couple minutes.

5 minutes for not a single stat for Teys and no minutes at all for Sobey or Johns.
7 guys doing all the work.

Hendo8888, Teys now has a -1. He attempted a 3 and missed.

Score anyone ?

Well done Sixers to get the gutsy win, some scary moments at the end there though.

Adelaide win 86-83

Randle - 28 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 turnovers.
DJ - 15 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 4 turnovers.
Peach - 11 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 5 turnovers.
Creek - 10 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 turnovers, 1 steal.
Ere - 10 points, 1 assist, turnover and steal
Gibson - 6 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists

Didn't see the game but just looking at the box scores looks like Gibbo had another shocker?

I meant his 8 shots all night at 25% shooting

Any reason why Tragardh plays less than five minutes and Starks less than 20??

Strange final minute.

Teys very lucky he signed multi year deal.

No Trigger was a big difference, but don't let that take anything away from the Sixers.

Good D. Made shots. Can't ask for more.

Treys appeared to do really well when promoted to the starting five last year (was it last year??). But he has been far less productive this year. What's up with him? Injury?

Can't ask for more.

Yes you could. You could expect them not to turn the ball over twice in the backcourt in the final two minutes, and please, for the sake of my sanity, BOX OUT!

Away wins against Cairns are hard to come by. That's a very important win. Makes up for the 3 pointer on the buzzer by Starks early in the season.
Gives us a bit of breathing space over Illawarra for 4th spot. Looking like a 5 horse race at this point.
Cairns are severely underperforming this season you'd have to say. Illawarra too.

Gibbo didn't do heaps, but 6 rebounds, 4 assists and a steal for only 1 turnover is still a solid game. Probably should be doing more, but looks like he was playing 3 pt shooter tonight, and it just wasn't dropping.

Randle keeps proving that he's basically unguardable. Didn't do a hell of a lot other than scoring, but when you score 28 points on 50% shooting, you don't need to.

Nice to get Cairns when their imports aren't dropping 20+ on us for a change. They seem to really love playing us usually.

Would I be right in saying 55 rebounds would be an extremely low total? 29 for us and 26 for them just seems way too low. Single players have games with more than that many in NBA. Both teams shot under 50%, so it's strange, considering we usually have high paced games. Only 5 for DJ, which is less than half of his season average.

Teys was the only sixer (apart from Sobey on the bench) with any energy. Creek and Gibbo are such disappointments to watch play, if they had half the enthusiasm of Sobey they'd be scary.

Don't know why Trigger didn't play much, must have been injured. Starks played less because Bruce was having a good game and was better on D.

But nothing convincing from ADL, they made more shots tonight and were handed the 3rd quarter with a very lopsided foul count. Might beat out CNS for a place in the four but no chance of dancing with Perth, NZ or Melbourne.

Sad watching both coaches whinging so much to the refs. Both should grow up.

Not a hater by the way, just a realist.

Randle was sensational also. Was the only reason ADL came away with that win.

Have the Sixers had enough time to GEL!!! LOL!!!

I agree re. Gibbo, but not Creek. Creek normally brings hustle and I haven't been disappointed watching him play at all this season.

Good to see Weigh turn up for the first time in six games. Loughton...not so much...

Adelaide I'd say is a step behind the top two, but could push them if they play good enough D and rebound. They just have too many lapses, like they did in the final couple of minutes (Petrie turnovers were killers). Really should have won by 10-plus.

I wouldn't have said the refereeing had any influence.

-Gibbo won the game for us, after be couldn't be arsed blocking Wortho off the offensive boards, he had the presence of mind to push Wortho in the back when he was in the air with the rebound, causing Wortho to miss the easy put back, knowing the refs will swallow their whistle and die ATM rather than make a call for a team in the last 5 seconds of a game, after the various handed out to refs in the last few rounds.

Veteran play. Also somewhat ironic for wortho.

It was a blatant foul in the end but 2 shots wasn't going to save CNS.

You guys are crazy if you think you can tell how well someone played from looking at a box score - really!!
If you actually watched the game you will see when the ball was in Gibbo's hands he sets up and controls the team - the whole play every time down the floor he's looking to get the ball in his scorers hands. You don't get assists for missed shots.
Also how many stats do you get for defensive effort or hustle... Is 100 games for your club not enough commitment - you're never satisfied

Spinner: Teys has actually been slightly more productive this season than last on a per minute basis. The difference is he's playing much fewer minutes, especially since Randle was brought in, because they have moved Walker to the 3 to give them some extra size.

Hendo8888: Sobey isn't getting any court time for the same reason - with Walker at the 3 they now essentially have seven guys in the backcourt and there's just not enough minutes for everyone.

No Legs would have run point better than Gibbo!
No point talking about it though as like every other coach Adelaide has had Locals don't get much opportunity!
No wonder Ingles never wanted to play here, never would have got anyway sitting on the bench in a lowly rated team
Sad but true and with the current coach if your not from Qld you have NO chance

Massive massive win by Adelaide. Only two teams have won in Cairns in the past two years and the 36ers have done it twice. They're now up 2-1 and +9 on the Taipans in the season series.

If the refs keep allowing it to be this scrappy I'd highly fancy Adelaide's chances of making the playoffs, that suits their defensive style perfectly.

Terrible last offensive possession for Cairns. You don't burn clock when you're down, especially if you're down three; you need time to rebound/foul if you miss. And they got a horrible shot out of it.

Agree, Gliddon should have attacked off a ball screen and then got the best quick shot available.

Oops thought Ere was going to have this big break out game with 5 in 1 st qtr but no didn't happen . Well we will keep on waiting . Loved it once when unhappy with a call and blew out his chest which almost led to stretching his uniform to its limit.
But his defence was again a highlight as he waved to them as they blew past him. Even made Weigh look good.

I must admit I respect the little gimme of swagger he gets after making a shot, like 'all night long baby' is on repeat in his head, then he misses a few more haha He lost his feet a few times in the third and the one with the TO attached was just awkward. I felt bad for him at that point.

Hendo8888 - It is actually a good thing Sobey and Johns aren't getting minutes. The reason is because Wright has worked out that going to a rotation of 8 players instead of 10 makes us a much better team.

I like Sobey but in the minutes he has had this season he has pretty much wasted them and made dumb decisions. I think next season with Gibson gone he will have his chance to make a big impact with this team.

Yeah twice, just sad to watch. It's not so much that, he just look even close to putting up a 20-25 point game anytime soon. Would be nice to have an import who could help carry the load in that respect.

Hopscotch11, Gibbo standing around yelling at players is not controlling the team, he's just getting too lazy to create a play himself. Why should everyone else have to run around to where he points if he doesn't do the same?

I don't understand the vehemence of the criticism towards Gibson. He is still one of if not the best local PG in the league. He has his limitations, and he is not a create his own shot go to scorer, but that is why Wright continues to pair him up with imports who are.

Nearly halfway through the season, and with Randle now next to him needing the ball in his hands, Gibson is still second in APG at 5.5 and the only Aussie in the top 7 (Goulding next at 3.15 APG). He is also a pretty safe pair of hands and has low turnovers (although this year he has more than most other years).

Do we just turn on him now that he is rumoured to be leaving? I would have him back as local PGs are very very hard to replace.

I've always wanted a true shooting guard next Gibbo rather combo's/scoring point guards like Deleon, Ervin, Wilson and Randle.

Randle is an unselfish import, which is unusual.