Cairns are 26-7 at home over the past 2.5 seasons, so I'll tip Cairns.

But it's an unusually intriguing contest because of how Adelaide destroyed them last time. Cairns haven't had many bad losses like that.

I remember hearing reports that Cairns just shot really poorly, and it wasnt anything specifically that Adelaide were doing, just that Cairns had an off night.

So in theory then, if those reports are true, maybe there's not necessarily anything structural where Adelaide has the wood over them. Guess we will find out tonight.

Pretty sure the 36ers have a good record up in Cairns so I'm expecting us to get the win tonight.

36ers by 3

been a while since we lost 2 in a row at home... But with the short turn around and the niggling injuries that some of the key players are dealing with.. who knows...

I do, Taipans by 20.

Yeah gotta say us tonight.

Although Adelaide has been the best team in Cairns (relative to their ladder position at least) in recent years. We don't seem to enjoy the up-and-down game, and Adelaide is the only team that is able to consistently run against us.

It's a semi-must win game for the 36ers. They have Kings home & away and Perth at home following that. Adelaide could potentially go from 3-6 to 7-6 to 7-10.

Agree, pretty important game for any post season hopes. Will be a good one to see where we are at.

Having no Creek for tonight due to soreness is a big loss.

I'll roar laughing if Teys starts.

so what is the bet ( im french )

Haha.

Gotta love Sobey in the air.

Lol.
Drmic is garbage

Randle goes off and the Sixers stink it up.
One man band.

Deng is a terrible defender.

PMSL @ Teys and that offensive set

Teys FFS

Hahahahahaha...Teys. What a spud.

Cam Tragardh is the best commentator this country has.

32-14 third period. Not bad for Adelaide but there are foul troubles. Ferguson has 4, Hodgson and Jacobson have 3 each.

DJ has 22 on 9/11 with 4/5 from outside. Also has 8 rebounds.

Correction, DJ has 25 points so far.

WTH is Fearne doing subbing 5 on 5 off!?

Cairns playing a shocker. Not sure if it's coincidental that this is their second shocker vs Ade....

DJ just beasting it.

Adelaide are now the team to beat
:p

Clinic

Fearne left Jawai on about 15 minutes too long!!
He was out on his feet.

DJ seems to play his best ball on the road, would be interesting to see what his home vs away numbers are.

If DJ played tough, hungry, grown man ball consistently...he'd be in the NBA.

After Fearne ran 5 on/off, things went from bad to worse.

Adelaide will be team to beat if they can beat Sydney with top spot on the line

I did pick 36ers for last in the pre season, but they are very well coachedw, Sobey has taken a maaaasive step forward and Randle has been as good as last year. Those are all significant factors in their success

36ers are a force to be reckoned with - you had people saying they were a one man team, now they're ballin' big time even when Creek isn't playing. They have the most depth in the league which pays bigtime.

^^^^ most depth in the league?

Get your hand off it. Deserves a whole separate thread of laughter that statement.

ROFLcopter - can you prove otherwise? Who do you think has more? I hear you're the one who runs their mouth on here and pretty much the biggest troll so it's hard to respect your opinion...

"If DJ played tough, hungry, grown man ball consistently...he'd be in the NBA."

That is the only thing holding him back from being just about THE dominant big man in the NBL. He really does need to toughen up on defence. If he could do that, he might not be in the NBA but he would definitely be a regular Boomers player.

DJ is very lazy at times, which is a joke for what the 36ers are likely paying him he should be playing like this every night...

"ROFLcopter - can you prove otherwise? Who do you think has more? I hear you're the one who runs their mouth on here and pretty much the biggest troll so it's hard to respect your opinion..."

No proof required. My opinion is what I posted.
36ers have a few stars and the rest are filler. If Sobey, DJ and Randle play well, they win.

As for hearing i run my mouth. Lol. I'm no troll. Just call it as I see it dude. Your respect isn't important to me.

ROFLcopter is a flog.

The 36ers are not an especially deep team. Hawks have far more for one. Their bench one game recently was Clarke, Harris, Martin, Holyfield, Kay, Ellis.

Sobey must've loved having that game up there. 36ers have some tough tests coming up but they've smashed these recent games. Impressive. Hopefully DJ carries on with that form.

gotta agree that the 36ers aren't that deep, but with Randle, DJ and Sobey they don't need to be. The rest of the guys just need to play their role.

Amazing to think they towelled us up without Creek either......

We were way to sloppy on D. Caught with our pants down more than Malcolm Fraser. 36ers would have scored 20 at least from simple breakdowns......

If anyone needs me i'll be drinking heavily for the next 24-48 hours.

I don't think you need to be particularly deep in basketball to be a great team.

Big win for the 36ers given the tough games ahead.

The 'sack joey' and 'joey can't coach teams that aren't star studded' brigades have quietened down of late...

The big thing of note lately, is the 36ers have a few guys to count on. Sobey's improvement has been of massive value to us, it's another guy we can count on night in night out. Randle's first half of drive and dish was absolutely sublime. DJ had one of his periodic domination games where we ask the same question "why doesn't he take the three point shot more often?". He looks lazy and hesitant at times, but when he gets super active he can be just so damaging.

There were vulnerable periods there where the 36ers made those youth mistakes - overly ambitious passes and very questionable defence turning into fouls or allowing wide a player to slip behind (especially Ferguson, Hodgson & Jacobsen). A few open threes for guys like Loughton kept Cairns in it - I still don't like how we make ourselves so blatantly vulnerable from there. However, our defence including the perimeter has improved noticably the last few weeks and it has shown with the 36ers reducing opponents scoring against them by 10 points per game.

Taipans couldn't handle Sobeys foot speed and help D was weak/slow/late.

Fearne seems to be really pissed off at anyone at anytime....I mean REALLY pissed off!!

Its ok to be really pissed off, but at a professional level when you sub the whole team off to make a point and then...no point made,seems a useless exercise and other methods are needed before you lose the whole teams ability to listen/execute.

Starting 5 was -27 at that point Skull. I think benching them was the least he could have done. After all the rotations they missed on D i don't blame him for looking really pissed off.

I would have told them to go shower......

Trice and Glinton really need to start bringing it or we're going to get hammered every night wortho/loughton aren't shooting the desperation 3 well enough to keep us in games like this. And FFS give Damon heuir a bit more court time, weeks is never going to be the back up point guard fearne's trying to turn him into, may as well spread it around a bit.

Weeks finished with a +17 +/-

+/- doesn't tell the whole story... but if you compare it to Trice's -27..... it kind of does. Weeks only played 3 minutes less.

Depth is only important if you have injuries.

Neither Gaze's Tigers nor Anstey's Tigers were deep, but they each won 2 Championships from 4 Grand Finals.

Neither have Most of Lebrons teams been particularly deep and he's been to the NBA Finals 7 times, including the last 6 in a row.

Randle, DJ and Sobey keep bringing it, and Adelaide's lack of depth isn't an issue.

Great win tonight but we shouldn't get too ahead of ourselves as there is a possibility we could be 8-10 after the next 4 games. We would then be bottom 2-3. Hopefully the boys will continue to play the way they have been and get 2-3 wins from the next 4 games.

Excellent plan by Joey to rest Creek tonight and get him ready for Sydney.

Something I have been happy about from the last several wins is that we seemed to have given up on playing that stupid trap! Usually other teams get easy scores or we end up with mismatch problems and they end up scoring.

Excellent games by Sobey, Randle and Johnson. The rest of the team did their roles. Special mention for Jacobsen for his effort out there including slowing down Jawai.

(Correction- Ansteys Tigers got deeper as Seamus' pockets grew, culminating in a deep team in 09. But in 06, Anstey's first season back, they weren't deep at all).

Kingpodge: 29% FG% this season, the lowest on the team. He's indecisive in his shot selection and his confidence looks shot.

I was really happy when he got picked up earlier this year but the stuff he did really well at the hawks: lightning fast points in transition + highlight reel dunks, doesn't translate to a tightly controlled Fearney team. If he was let off the leash a bit more and utilised differently he could be bringing to the taipans some of the energy that sobey brings to the 36ers. Something that was sorely missing tonight.

I was just talking about tonight CT, he did pretty well. I agree that he's not that effective in a structure (not with his shooting %'s anyways), but he does seem to have a license to explore. Needs to work on when to iso and when to play the offence, had similar moments at the Hawks last night.

His hustle and defence has been top notch.

I must say, it's a bad combination having a team that can't spend to the cap and can't develop talent

Adelaide just looked too fast for Cairns. As soon as the sixers saw open floor they just went for the hole making Cairns scramble, giving DJ time and space. Jaw looked like a liability when forced to D and then rush offence. Hats off to Jacobsen. His hustle has been excellent, loves getting into a scrap. He layed the foundation with the hustle and rebounding against the Breakers last game, but ran into foul trouble and had to sit.

That 2nd half is the worst half of basketball the Taipans have played at home for a long time. I wonder how hard they were worked in their training and video session on Sunday as they seemed to be totally flat in the second half and also started the game sluggishly ?

This performance reminded me of when we lost a number of home games 3 seasons ago with a big factor being that the players were being worked too hard by Fearne in the lead up to the games (something he admitted to before the next season commenced). It led to the Taipans adopting a new training regime including not training the day before a game. That started when Wilbekin was here but I don't know if it is still adhered to now.

Although I agree with the comments supporting Fearne's subbing off of the whole team in the 3rd quarter I agree with @skull that "Fearne seems to be really pissed off at anyone at anytime....I mean REALLY pissed off!!" and I agree with @skull that Fearne needs to be careful before he loses the teams ability (willingness) to listenexecute.

Fearne made the point that he felt the starting five “were fractured, don't play hard together, concentrate” and he also said “I expect us to play a lot harder than that.” Perhaps he needs to ask himself why they weren't ?

I agree with @CT's comment that Trice and Gliddon need to start bringing it for us to be competitive. At least one of them needs to have a very good game on a particular night. If both go missing like they did last night, there's a problem. Trice had a reasonable game against Sydney but didn't make much headway when the screws went on and I am puzzled by his performance last night. @Kingpodge previously mentioned a couple of key players are carrying niggling injuries and I wonder if Trice is one of them (Edwin is one I think)?

It doesn't get any easier for the Taipans as they play an in form Illiwarra on Saturday afternoon and a loss to them will make things very difficult in the 2nd half of the season.

Jawai managed to rim stuff twice, they were momentum moments too

Looking at the two most recent captains -- Gliddon and Loughton -- it's not hard to see why they've had an inconsistent mentality from game to game. Wilbekin took the lead in his season, but apart from that we haven't had strong presences. Glizzo and Loughzy may be good blokes and respected, but their on-court production fluctuates far too much and that has to rub off on the entire roster.

Cairns just tried to play too quick last night. In the second quarter when they controlled tempo and moved the ball, and made Adelaide play half-court offence, the game went their way.

Trice had no read on the game at all last night, or in the last 15 minutes against Sydney. He needs to start playing like a pro PG and picking his moments better.

Just looked at the boxscore, Trice -27, Weeks +17.

As for working them too hard, Fearne effectively admitted he was pounding them in the press conference last week. He needs to get his side of things back on track pretty quickly.

In junior basketball i've seen the "sub the whole team off" thing work, but at pro level it looks like a coach trying to gain control back after for some reason losing control?

The pattern we have seen recently is not a good sign.ie slow start, recovery and in front by half time, second half meltdown...
I remember a few seasons ago a similar pattern developed mid year, we recovered that year....but it was too late.

The downward spiral is a mental thing from both coach and players, believing and tweeking from both sides is required...and quickly.

Anon #612751 i know we're all salty son... but:
Bruce, Sobey and Maynard didn't leave because they 'felt controlled'. Maynard wanted to play more and he was 2 players deep on the bench (behind Bruce and import PG), Sobey left because he wanted more time because he was 2 players deep on the bench (behind Gliddon and import 2), Bruce left because they offered him more cash than the Taipans did. Sobey didn't develop overnight, and he's moulded his game around the 36ers style.
The problem is having the $$ to retain players when they've developed.

Note: 'too controlled' the most controlled offence in the league, with the slowest pace is the Kings.. who coincidentally play with the same structure as the Taipans.

Also note that Fearne's style has gotten us to the finals more times than Joey's style has in Adelaide.

It's Maccaron's first professional season, he wouldn't be starting in any squad. And the only way he'd start for the Taipans is if they benched Gliddon.

Jamar's avg's went down after he left Cairns, Craig has gone from strength to strength, but there are a heap of players that didn't kick on. Chewy, Ron, Hill and Dillon all went downhill after they left... and then you have guys like Burston and Trigger who had second comings of their careers in Cairns (for 1 or 2 years at least).

Lots of players who play great in the Blitz don't get court time in the main season.... that's because it's the preseason........


Last night was shit, we looked horrible in the 2nd half, but 4 days ago we were 1 game from 1st place. That's a lot of work to be done to fix things, but let's keep it in perspective. There's been so many swings and roundabouts for every team this year....

Wilson's numbers went up after he left Cairns and it's McCarron's second professional season. He started in his first one in a lower level comp. Apart from that a pretty good post.

There's nothing wrong with asking players to play within structure, it's how basketball is played all around the world and has been shown to work in Cairns when they get it right, despite spending considerably lower than many other teams.

Sorry Paul, I was only thinking of Dubs' stats before he got benched - those stats don't count haha :)

#612792, sounds like a 'sack Fearne' thread is in order then...

Fearne really needed to give Heuir more minutes last night. It was pretty obvious that the towelling given to Trice meant he wasn't able to get into any flow, and Heuir is a guy who is ballsy enough to not care who's defending him, he'll have a crack. He's better at driving to the rim than Trice, and I think he's probably a more consistent 3pt shooter (no, I haven't checked the stats.)

Mostly, though, I wonder why Fearne didn't try Edwin defending Randle. What worked so well in Brisbane's thrashing of Adelaide was Craig's defence on Randle. I understand that Randle had a great game in the return leg of that weekend's double-header, but it may have been a good thing to try. Like it or not, Adelaide fans, the 6ers still need Randle to be playing well to win. If he's not able to contribute, then it makes it harder for guys like DJ to score (it's pretty well noted that he's not a 1st option guy.) That being the case, trying something else to hold Randle back might have made a difference last night.

Just quickly, on Tevin Jackson: he's a guy with tremendous talent, and an NBL ready physique. I think he'll probably do very well somewhere (and I hope it's Cairns, who have forward spots coming up next season.) He really needs to work on his shooting technique for jump shots and free throws, though. Currently, his form is aweful. He should have a look at the strokes of people like Heuir or Ferguson from the field, and Randle or Worthington from the line, just to name a few examples from last night's game.

I think the performance against Brisbane at home has woken this team up into adjusting in a few key areas. The Defence especially has been better.

I just love what Jacobsen brings. I don't care about what the stat sheet reads, he gives us something that's been missing for a long time.

Anonymous, I hate the term 'haters'. What does it mean? It's a lazy dud word which just means that i don't agree with what you think so i'll classify you as someone who hates. People should stop saying it so much everywhere.

Anon: Wright - 1 GF with Radelaide, Fearne 2 GF with Taipans = more GF appearances.

Sorry if i stuttered....

It's Maccaron's first professional season

1st pro season in Australia Zodiac..... I'm well aware of his history...

Podge,

What's your take on Gliddon's inconsistent play from game to game? Just symptomatic of the defensive attention he's received or does he take himself out of games?

Are there any areas the team can improve on?

Also, Fearney said starting spots are now up for grabs

I wouldn't mind seeing Egwu start with Jawai coming from the bench.

Manu, no idea... Could be a bit of A leading to B. Could be that he's trying to be too unselfish, and/or he's second guessing his decision making. Either way he's having an ordinary confidence patch and hasn't looked switched on at the other end either. Maybe it's time to take a leaf out of Bevo's book this season, and bring Cam off the bench like Rot. Help him work that confidence back. Start Mitch at 2 and see how they go.

Twinkle, in theory Eggs in the starting lineup for Jawai works for me, but Jawai does open up a lot of options when they double him in the post. We're very perimeter orientated when he's on.
Or start Wortho/Eggs at 5 and Weigh at 4.... Weigh's post work has been good the last 2 games - I was surprised they didn't go to him on the block more against Sydney.

Maybe they're all just a bit fatigued and need a week off..... after last night i know i do...

Rewind just a few days and they'd won six of nine and led the Kings by 15 in the third. They botched that and had a bad night against Adelaide (both by going away from the system that works) but it's not time to panic, they're only one game out of fourth and 2.5 games off first!

haha wise words Paul.

I guess the trick is to act without overreacting.

haha Anon, it's also a pretty well established fact around the league that Anon posters generally post garbage....

I'm pretty happy with the people i talk to and the opinions/stories i hear. I don't get fed anything.

FYI Jackson is a development player....

haha ok then, all the best to you Anon in all your future anon posts

Podge, Gliddon really doesn't get shut out by hawking defences. It's in his head, and he's had consistency problems his whole NBL career. Not an ideal trait for a captain, wouldn't you agree?

Manu - I'm not sold that he's had consistency issues his whole career, but he's def had the yips on offence the last couple of weeks.

Lot more goes into being the captain than the on court stuff, but you are right that you need to bring (at the very least) poise into a game. Even if you're not scoring, you should be playing the hardest. He needs to lead from the front when it comes to effort. Someone who didn't know who the captain was, would probably think Wortho is the captain based on the game performances.

Hopefully there's a slump breaker coming Saturday afternoon. I've got faith in his ability, i just hope he does! haha

Has anyone stopped to think how well the young talent have fundamentally improved and developed during their time in CNS?

Apart from NZ, there is no better DP success story than CNS in the last 5 or so years.

I don't think it's sad to see them go - i see it as a feather in the cap of the franchise and good luck to the players, who got their start and professional fundamentals in the CNS program.

If taipans had unlimited funds they would probably retain some more but they still have a bottom line which doesn't get compromised and as a result you have one of the most stable franchises in the league.

I would rather have a stable team every season then one that folds and gets rebranded every five years because they can't operate within a budget.

Sobey is an exception - no-one could have seen him playing as well as he has this season, but the other guys like Bruce, Maynard, Young and Steindl they ultimately wanted more money and the Taipans knew they weren't worth it yet - so they went to other teams that were willing to overpay them.

well said Wilson.

Sobey was also only hear for 1 year as a development player and behind Bruce and Maynard (contracted players as well) in the rotation for most of the year.

In a team that finished the regular season #1, had no major injuries and made it to the grand final.......

There wasn't an opportunity for Sobey to get an opportunity.

again, development player, in the rotation to give some rest for Wilbekin, Gliddon and Bruce. He was never going to get extended court time. How was he going to play more than 5 minutes per game with that rotation?

36ers go 'hey we really want you, here is some $$ and a 3 year contract'. Given (at the point he signed) that Wilbekin was coming back, why wouldn't you take the deal for more $$ and be moved up the rotation? Taipans couldn't match the $$ or guarantee he'd see more court time.

Even then, he only avg'd 10 minutes court time last season with the 36ers and only started once. Injuries happened, he got opportunities, realised the potential that they saw in him when they offered him the deal and he's had an outstanding break out season.

- playing/training next to a guy like Randall does a hell of a thing for your development as well...

I'm saying this lightly, but Podge you live in an echo chamber where the walls are painted orange mate.

Admittedly we don't have it too bad. We're a good team but over the last season and a half we've had problems sustaining effort and, subsequently, success.

Wilson, it's the proverbial 'chicken or egg' scenario. Even if it were the Taipans developing players, we're essentially fattening up the chicken then selling it for a loss. Not a good business model, Steggles can attest. Chickens are good for controlling tick and mosquito numbers in your yard, but instead Fearney is locking these chickens in cages where they can't do anything for you.

Fearne needs to give his birds some range, some scope. Some free range.

the walls are orange Manu, but I'm very well aware of my own bias, which is why i treat to measure my feels with data ;)

*try

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Sobey's break out season is that he has been able to play within the flow of the game and not force things too much. More than anything, I thought that would be his limiting factor, as he appeared last year to be playing at a pace that had him out of control too often.

This year he has been cautious with the ball and not turned it over too much, and then turns on an explosive change of pace which makes him so dangerous. Last year he had an assist to turnovers ratio of less than 1, this year it is 2.2 assists for every turnover.

If he doesn't win MIP i'll eat my taipans membership card...

"Even if it were the Taipans developing players, we're essentially fattening up the chicken then selling it for a loss."

Not really, we don't lose money by losing the players. If we kept the players it would cost us more money.

It's not like a business that invests years of development into their staff to the point where they are near irreplaceable and it would cost them more money to re-develop - they're just basketball players that should be able to learn the team plays and rotations in a pre-season.

it took a few years and 2 false starts, but we got Taipans Academy Graduate Wortho back - it's a long game :)

Now we just need Aaron Baynes back.... and we're sweet...

'Money' is just part of the narrative. The 'money loss' equates to 'talent loss'

Or 'asset loss'

happens all the time though. Look at all the other teams that have lost development guys, or guys that have gone thru/been in the system for a while:

NZ: Wesley, Te Rangi
Perth: Jervis
36ers: Cadee
Kings: Madgen, Brandt

That's all i can think of off the top of my head.

Cadee basically only played a season for the Blaze, the 36ers were the ones that spent capital on developing him - regardless of who didn't want what in the in.

Magen DP'd for the sixers for 2 years and didn't get on the court. The kings were the ones that invested 5 years and $$ into him. But he exercise his out clause to go make a bucket load of cash somewhere else.

.... you've missed the point....

And yes most people consider 130k pretty good for 6 months work.

*sigh* figure of speech....

you. have. missed. the. point. again...........

Time to give it a rest anon. Kingpodge is well respected on this forum and knows quite a thing or two about this league. You however, are anon.

Probably best for you to get a handle so we can see who you are and ignore your posts in the future.

haha Wilson, you're on the Christmas card list ;)

So McCarron to start in place of Gliddon according to the Cairns Post. Interesting move.