Bitter Anonytrolls:

We love that you hate us and are jealous of our success.

PS ROFLcopter is a flog.

Andersen went down early in our last clash, now their is talk of him suiting up for this one!

Is there anyone else still out for MU?
(apart from the imports they've replaced.)

I think Perth have both the D and the firepower to win this, but I have always maintained that if MU could get all their guys healthy and gelling, they can still be a force.

Goulding for me is often the game-changer. He runs extremely hot & cold. If he could stay hot long enough, he can contribute a match winning score.

As always, the matchups inside will be interesting. IF MU start Andersen & Majok, and Perth Knight & McKay, it will be interesting to see who goes to whom. I think its an pretty even match-up, but McKay still has the potential to explode. Of course Brandt has been in great form off the bench, so it will be interesting to see how he's used.

Ultimately, I expect Prather will be the difference. Last time we met he scored 39 points, 11 boards, and 5 assists. MU just don't have anyone who can go with him.
Of course he also fouled out, and getting into foul-trouble early has been an issue.

People whine about Perth fans but they themselves can't help mentioning how much they hate them in every post with no provocation. You just sound sad and bitter.

On the game I think the cats should have it. Cotton saw what he can do when he is forced to take over a game like in that final quarter against nz (17point quarter). Prather will be out to bounce back. If the defense can get in Wares and Gouldings face and prevents a 3point barrage cats should have it. If it becomes a 3 point shootout the cats will be down and out.

"I'm enjoying this fall from grace Gleason has implemented."

Hallelujah brother, testify.

Last time Casper Ware came to the jungle he lift with 38 points next to his name.
This time around he'll have Damian Martin to contend with, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing what difference that makes. (A significant one, I'm guessing)

Not just martin, but Cotton.
The Trio of Martin, Cotton, and Kenny is a much better defensive unit than Kenny, Wroe, and Bragg.

Tomorrow is a special day. The Chinese consider this the first day of the year.

Happy Chinese New Year. Will the Cats win on this day? All My Chinese friends have bets that the Cats will.

Yes, it's the year of the cock, so expect Gleeson to be even more animated than usual, and possibly some special performances by Redhage & Goulding as well.

As a United fan I dread the trip to Perth. A long way to travel for an L.

Would be surprised if Melbourne take it away. Melbourne also don't go deep on the bench and rely too heavily on a shallow group. Likely will see a couple DNPs or very limited minutes for Odigie, Smith-Milner, Adnam, and just grind the rest in to the ground.

I'd rather see Perth win than Melbourne.

I'd take the final four as they are now, although i'd prefer Sydney 4th, or NZ out with Cairns in. I suppose that's an anti-competitive thought. With that said, anyone in this league can compete.

Gleeson is a flog.

United are horrid on the road and always lose to Perth.
Cats will win.

I wish I had the confidence to say Perth will win this game but even with Cotton and Martin back in the lineup there's a good chance will shoot 2/30 from behind the arc and lose the game. Cats haven't been the force at home that they have been in previous years but you would think if they could hit some 3's and limit either Goulding or Ware than they should get up.

"Yes, it's the year of the cock, so expect Gleeson to be even more animated than usual"

Hahahaha well played Luuuc.

"year of the cock", well played.

What are the chances the refs get handed some little red envelopes before this match. Strictly cultural, obviously.

"I'm enjoying this fall from grace Gleason has implemented."

mmm.. If it's one thing non Perth fans haven't learnt yet, is that it's not over until the Trophy is hoisted.

I've been following this team for 33 years, and time and time again I see people write them off because they are playing like shit (which, incidentally they are right now). Yet time and time again I see them peak at the right end of the season while other teams (ala Adelaide this year and Melbourne last year) peak early and fall in a heap the moment the pressure is really on (yes, I'm aware that this may not eventuate for Adelaide yet - and good luck to them - unfortunately I live there now *sigh*).

I quietly watch these forums and am constantly amused by the obvious trolling of Perth fans. I'm even more amused by those that bite.

It's sometimes hard to tell which are trolls and which aren't - so kudos for that - so in the hope that I chose to respond to one that wasn't intended that way, I will revisit the above sentiments at the end of the season. Exactly the way I did when I was picked out by a Melbourne fan on twitter last year as a target of his attempted trolling while Melbourne was smashing everyone.

In his defense, he was gracious in defeat by the end of the season.

Just to finish off, this goes out to all the trolls on here (keep it up by the way, it's fun to watch) - as a Wildcats fan for as long as I have been, it's gives me such an immense feeling of pleasure knowing that after all these years, we still do it bigger and better than the rest of you, because it's not always about the results.
I'd hate to be in your shoes.

JasonC.

Going to be interesting watching Ware. When he last played Sixers he dropped his chin when they guarded him super tight. If Martin took note of that then Ware is going to hate it. He doesn't like the close attention and looks to the refs to give him a call and bail him out.

I don't get it.
People hate it when Perth wins "another" championship,
they accuse Perth fans of being arrogant,
but as soon as it looks like Perth aren't favourite to finish first and win the lot, they start sprouting crap about falling from Grace.

Well said, JasonC (someone who has always been good value on basketball boards going back many years)
If posters want to stop being trolled so hard then perhaps some of them should stop getting sucked into it so easily. Reacting embarrassingly is a sure-fire way to cop it even more next time.

Villains and drama are good for sport. If that is largely Perth for now then so be it.

No matter what happens, every one hates Perth because of there success, plain and simple. You going to find something to make you feel better when you are a key board warrior!

As a member and supporter, can never fault what they do to make sure they are in with a chance to win a championship every season.

Streak might end but the Red army will stand together! Just appreciate what they have any will continue to do.

I'm just pissed, this year they haven't played near what they can and with the treatment of jj and no proper replacement for damo, knowing he will be out for a extended period of time.

"Adnam in an NBL side shows you how desperate Melb Untied are to fill their roster.'

Would rather Adnam over Tomlinson in any game or situation of the season.

The battle of the two most hated clubs.

Looking unlikely that they'll both make top 4 given they play twice more. Still possible though.

Let the games begin.

DD doing his best to get Cats into the lead, with 37 subs in the first quarter.

In spite of him, United doing well.

yeah , david barlow pretty good ... subbed out . of course...

(serena wearing no.23 jordan nikes)

Perth getting all the loose ball and 50/50 calls here

Guess it was United who slipped the refs the little red envelope. Abysmal officiating.

Terrible call against Casper Ware

That was rubbish by Martin. I really don't like saying this but Heal is spot on.

Martin flattens Ware, who needs to go off and get treatment, and they call the foul on Casper.

Truth is stranger than fiction. Perth Reffing a parody

Hey a flop warning. Make up call?

The NBL will be better off without Redhage next year.

United made the mistake by taking the lead early. Big No no in Perth Arena.
Naughty boys.

Love United but they're an absolute mess out there.

If this game is a loss for United you could safely bet DD isn't back next season. Unfortunately I can't see Ware resigning. Tomlinson needs to go.

That game turned when Casper went off

Hopefully he can return and give Golden boy Martin his comeuppance in the second half.

Cottons fitting in nicely now as a wildcat. Lost his shooting action and can barely hit iron. Not sure how they are gonna win this without any decent shooters out there.

I almost didn't recognise Melbourne at the beginning of this game, the way they were moving the ball quickly and executing with purpose ... but then Wesley was subbed in the offence stagnated.

I'd like to see some advanced stats on Wesley post-ups. It seems pretty inefficient and easy to defend, but DD persists with it.

Refs encourage players to dart infront for the charge, that's the way they called it. Of that's dirty why aren't we mentioNing the screens wesley sets sideways with the point of his shoulder. Hating on Damo in his 250th seems almost unaustralian...

That's just rubbish from the cats.

My god. These charge calls. Ironic that Goulding was on the wrong side of a flop..

Not sure if it's the teams, the coaches, the players or the refs. But the combination of the above is producing some of the ugliest basketball I've ever seen. So much so I'd rather look at my keyboard.

Hammer being savage on the refs and rightly so. The "oh my" count is right up there.

DD calls united to foul not realising they are in the bonus. Comical

Melbournes handling themselves better this game though with the '50/50' calls.

Great. Gleeson brings on kernich-drew for 3 seconds

And as usual things are cookin' Perth!

Some awful offender on both ends of the court in this game. Perth's spacing is atrocious.
Absolute howler of a call against Goulding against Wagstaff to end the third.

Lasan Kromah must be shit

Remember when Matt Knight used to actually look like a professional basketball player and not a hobo picked off the street to fill a roster spot.

What a spud he is now.

Gleeson's voice hit the high note for a sec there, so its true it didn't hit the ring! :)

Why no flop on Martin? Oh, I forgot, it's Martin.

wtf is redhage out there? While Brandt sits on the pine

Why arent United spreading out the floor and letting Ware and Boone high pick and roll from the middle... I hate it when we want to just hit highlight 3's.

How are Perfect still in this game?

Like two pub fighters going at, this is unedifying.

And that's why Boone is terrible at scoring.

Dodged a bullet there, jeez.

Htf did the cats win that? Prather and knight are just a shell of their former selves. Devoid of any confidence

Melbourne really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with that garbage couple of minutes to finish the game. The way Perth played that game, Melbourne should've won by 10.

^Perth

Unedifying indeed

DD calls united to foul not realising they are in the bonus. Comical

How injured is Casey Prather?

DKD subs in with 3.9 sec left in the quarter. Subs out with 2.3 secs left in the quarter. I had to laugh at that. Poor guy.

Matt Knight ... yikes. I get that the shoulder might be hurting pretty bad but it's more than just that going wrong for him at the moment.
Prather clearly needs a couple of weeks rest but I guess we just can't afford to give it to him. And to make things worse we conclude the season with 2 Fri-Sun doubles, so if we do happen to end up in the 4 we're just there for the streak and not to challenge for the title.

Glad we got the win, but there are so many concerns. Matty Knight looks done. He was slow running up and down the court, slow with his hands, allowed Melb to get too many offensive rebounds. I couldn't believe Gleeson didn't go with Brandt in the last few mins.
Several times Melb guards would turn the corner and drive to the basket and be surprised to be gifted open lay ups and reverse lay ups, rather than have another defender come in to try and block the shot.
Prather is either injured or severely lacking confidence, or both. When fit and at his best he dunks on players and is difficult to stop with his euro-step. Missing those two foul attempts almost cost the club its season.
Jesse has also been very average this season. I reckon the Cats will make quite a few changes next season.
Well done to Redhage for winning us the game. He should have retired last season but tonight he did well when the game was on the line.
Finally, why doesn't Gleeson give Dexter KD more time? He can shoot the 3 and has a lot of potential.

Brandt is great value at one end of the court. He got destroyed at the other end though, which I assume is why his minutes were limited.

I don't know. Our defence clearly broke down, I don't that you can pin that on Brandt. There were times when Knight was completely uninvolved at both ends, really struggling to get up and down the court.
And when trying to rebound, just had no elevation.
I assume that's the Hip Injury playing up.

This is going to be a nervous couple of weeks for Cats fans.
I think if we lose in Cairns next Sunday by more than 14 points, we're toast. Even just losing may be bad enough. I don't want to be relying on Adelaide winning to hold out Cairns.

Yes Adelaide have the minor premiership sewn up so its the best time to be playing them and Cairns are in good form. I cant see the cats making the four this year. Knight, prather and McKay look as though they are playing injured.
Cotton isn't the consistent perimeter shooter that i thought he would be and it needed some big shots from martin, hire and redhage to secure a victory tonight. It cant be expected that they will do that too often.
And Gleesons subs are a huge source of frustration for me. Especially when the cats' offense is really struggling kernich-drew could really help spread the floor. He showed what he can do when he got more minutes after JJ had been released and Cotton hadn't come into the side yet. The only thing i can think of is he lacks defensive capabilities which gleeson wants him to improve on. Same with why he plays knight ahead of brandt even though his form doesn't warrant it.

That would be 3 of the worst calls I have ever seen against United. And I am not a United fan.
The Ware Martin charge under the hoop was a block. The Wagstaff elbow to Ware was Wagstaff's offensive foul and the Wagstaff slide into Goulding was a block. I don't think those were even close they were obvious to me. That was a shame because that was a Grand Final atmosphere with every possession counting, both teams D'ing it up and United while they had there chances probably getting the raw end of the calls.

Sadly, over the last month or so, we've gone back to the old NBL style of any time a defender falls backwards with gusto it's a charge.

No point getting upset about it, no matter how annoying it is.

Haha, don't you remember last year, when we thumped NZ by 23 points and it was all the refs fault.
It is getting beyond a joke. 6's have won the minor premiership, and should be favourites for the ring, and still all their fans care about is Perth.
They NEED to have an Adelaide v Perth GF, as it will be the only way they can enjoy the win.

Found it amazing the Gleeson went with Knight and McKay to start the game against Barlow and Majok, even moreso when Knight matched up on Barlow.

They were outscored 13-7 in the first half of the opening quarter until Barlow subbed out, then Gleeson went back to it after half-time and they were outscored 8-1 until Barlow subbed out.

If Knight was in top form you could back him to exploit that mismatch at the offensive end but he's struggling badly.

Thought it was pretty obvious to start Wagstaff but Gleeson almost cost his team the game by not seeing it. They won the other 30 minutes 65-50.

I missed most of the first half last night because of the scorchers. Noticed Goulding getting booed a lot, anything in particular he did to annoy the crowd in the first half?

Found it amazing the Gleeson went with Knight and McKay to start the game against Barlow and Majok, even moreso when Knight matched up on Barlow.

Goulding was getting booed when the Martin foul was played on the big screen as it looked like Goulding went the old head flick. TBH I couldn't tell if there was contact or not but then my seats are about 5rows from the back.

"That would be 3 of the worst calls I have ever seen against United. And I am not a United fan.
The Ware Martin charge under the hoop was a block. The Wagstaff elbow to Ware was Wagstaff's offensive foul and the Wagstaff slide into Goulding was a block. I don't think those were even close they were obvious to me. That was a shame because that was a Grand Final atmosphere with every possession counting, both teams D'ing it up and United while they had there chances probably getting the raw end of the calls."

Get over it thats the way they want to call it. Ware flails and draws far to many rubbish calls.

How about redhage getting called for the only legal screen he has set in his career because Ware carries on like there was a sniper in the crowd? Have you seen Wesley set a screen? he lines people up with the point of his shoulder and gets away with it.

As discussed int he charge thread, any time a player establishes legal position before the offence it can be a charge, the rules do not say time needs to be a factor, thus all the charges for players flinging themselves infront of an offensive player and getting the call. I don't think that is defence but stop hating players for adjusting to the crap that is getting called.

How about redhage getting called for the only legal screen he has set in his career because Ware carries on like there was a sniper in the crowd? Have you seen Wesley set a screen? he lines people up with the point of his shoulder and gets away with it.