Let's hope for a close game.
Let's hope for no injuries or flopping.
Let's hope for no bitching about the refs.
Let's hope Melbourne wins.

^^ what he said, minus the Melbourne winning bit. ;)

Hopefully Goulding is fit and we get a proper showcase of these two teams. And hopefully Ware and co. don't shoot 80% from deep...

I have my doubts as to Goulding quite frankly.

He won't be back for a fair while and don't think he'll be fit all season. Bone bruising is weird.

Sydney mayne. Up em

Just hoping for this to be a proper showcase of both teams that isn't decided by the refs... No stupid tiny little fouls that limits any player and has a negative impact on the game... Hopefully a contest where the big guys are allowed to play like big guys and no soft fouls that wouldn't be called in my daughters netball game let alone a men's basketball game...

A sell out on a Monday is great.

Looking forward to watching the game. Hope the niggling injuries to Bubbles/Boone don't detract from the lustre of the affair.

Goulding has failed his fitness test. Won't suit.

I'm just hoping for a quality close game.

And also hoping the refs don't call soft or non-existent fouls on Bogut based on what they expect, rather than what actually occurs. The ref's treatment of Bogut in his first game was frustrating to watch, but they have improved since. I'd still like to see less calls on contests close to the basket, especially when the offense instigates contact. We haven't had a genuine world class rim protector in the league since Simon Dwight. Not since Simon Dwight have I focused so much attention on a player's defense.

Should be a cracking game, first time I think I've been keen to watch TV on a Monday night all year..

Some bad offense by the Kings these last couple of minutes.

Really need to get rid of Wear. One missed dunk, a brick 3 and a brick fadeaway jumper. Oh and now a rejected falling layup. 0/4 to start.

I think MU are basically letting him shoot. Need Kickert out there ASAP.

Kings real lucky to be only down 6... And really glad they didn't give Ware FTs on that leg flail.

11 points for Sydney at 1/4 time, if they play in the second half like they did against Illawarra then this game will be a farce!

Go the Violet Crumbles... prior to the game I thought Kings by 15+... that may be a little optimistic

This is real basketball here

Shot blocking keeping the Kings in it.

great showcase of australian basketball here with melbourne shooting 10/27 and sydney 6/27

fkn garbage league no wonder why nobody gives a shit about it

I watch a lot of basketball overseas and this is by far the worst league.

Kings playing offense like the Cairns game was this morning, but looking pretty active on D at least.

Kickert has also put up the two most uncharacteristic early-shot clock bad contested jumpers I think I've seen from him ever.

Thanks for your input Dione69! Thankfully no one is forcing you to watch this one.

"By far the worst league"

Good joke.

dont take it personal you're not on the court playing rugby hum sorry basketball.
don't be ashamed if australian basketball is trash . It might get better, in like a century or two.

Your big call is that it's too physical? Tell me how all of our aussies are doing over in America? Teams draft them for their physicality.

Wow, that Ware interview was A1 for Paige Cooper's standard. Nice work.

Brad Newley's yips at the free throw line is really shooting the Kings in the foot. Four points that would be quite handy right now

29 at half time... So many good offences, how exciting

Anonymous
No I live in France, my team is ASVEL in lyon,you can watch our results and the way we play basket ball
I'm watching this garbage because casper ware was on our team and I wanted to see how he was doing in Australia.

Poor boy, I'm still asking myselfwhy he has decided to go back to this basketball dump.

Wear is he going?

still better than this mess.

Odds of Gaze having an answer for Barlow on Bogut? 5%?

Really didn't realise how lacking in depth Sydney are.

Starting 5 (putting Kickert in there and kicking Wear to the bench) is fine and Bowen is nice.

But Players 7 and beyond are OK; nothing too special.

Bogut has Barlow on him, so rather than try and get a seal on him he takes the ball in front, fair dinkum what are the coaches doing on the side lines not calling that play.

Maybe the decals are slippery, better not rip them up or Philippino's could throw chairs at the players and by all reports there's a fair few living in Melbourne so it is plausible

How is Aylen considered the best ref in oz.

This "showcase" game is a joke. It's terrible.

Wow all the perth home calls and we got kennedy getting rewarded for that!!!

Wow all the perth home calls and we got kennedy getting rewarded for that!!!

Aylen is terrible.

MU keeping Sydney in the game

Casper flopper's league. Almost as good as CG floppy 3.

Get a semi coach and the Kings would easily be the best team in the NBL.

Gaze is arguably the oppositions best asset.

My goodness he has absolutely zero idea.

WTF @ SYD FTs.

Jeezus. Two misses from Kickert. Did the Kings walk to Melbourne from Sydney?

I guess that's why Trist has struggled for court time.

I would play Pineau over Wear at this point. Comes up with a great hustle play every time he's on the court.

Doing my very best to stay awake here ...

3/9 FT
PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL THEY SAY

Very scrappy game, don't know how Sydney are sticking around

Kings are playing better D than offense for the first time in 5 years.

I can't stand kickert, but he got fouled. But not perth so no one minds

Iso-ball from Randle Vs MU

Absolutely zero idea andrew Gaze, absoluteluy ZERO IDEA.

All what he has done is dimisnished his legacy..

Kings looking old and tired tonight.

FT shooting has killed the kings, unacceptable

Disgusting from the Kings.

The French dude is correct - WTF is this trash on tonight?

3 blocks for Bogut on the box, feels like he should be at least double that.

One game might not be great but that hardly means our league is the worst in the world. Surely as fans we can support our own league for goodness sake!!!

Melbourne United are nothing special....it is just that the rest of the league is just garbaage.

I love that with a few minutes to go, Gaze is teaching zone defence basics. Not the Under 9's!

Melbourne played less worse than Sydney, that was the difference. Not a good game, but I don't feel so bad about it. 3 more games against these guys.

To be fair, Kings were playing zone like an under 9s team.

Sydney getting killed on the O-Boards the last few minutes

4/12 on ft.

they're getting payed for playing .

Just sayin.

Kennedy's basketball - just run in and smack people. Dirty.

So funny how people have been tricked and fooled into the hype of this Kings team.

Lisch is absolutely NOTHING like what he was with Perth and his short stint with the Hawks. He has aged and is coming off a serious leg injury.

Bogut is nothing like what he was at his peak.

Newley is russbish and that import Wear LOLOLOL

The only GOOD player is Randle...yet it seems like Gace has destroyed him.

And that coach LOL

DJ obviously just watched enough games to know that running into traffic and flailing your arms at home = FTs. I think Melb did a good job of getting the one guy scoring points - DJ - the ball a ton. Kings should have been doing that with Lisch.

United made a statement tonight. Best team in the league! Commentators would have you know. Also "money makin"

I would say Melbourne are the best team in the league right now. Good depth, and should have had the W over Perth if not for a bad call to end regulation.

I'm still not convinced on Utd yet as they played two absolute spud teams this round.

Sydney definitely need another import, actually 2 if you get rid of Wear.

Quality defense by United tonight. And Kennedy finally played like the guy I was expecting to see.

Sydney disappointing. Often disorganised. Can't see Wear lasting much longer.

I think he's a training player in street clothes?

@AngusH Perth has played one away game

* Two if you count the second one we played

#Wearishegoing? 2 new imports.

Wear was the urgency on this Kings squad (apart from Pineau) it was absolutely horrible and they shouldn't be tired, they weren't distracted by the refereeing and Melbourne weren't good tonight at all but Sydney looked completely disinterested.

Dwayne Russell has to go, when a commentator sounds disappointed that the ball went out of bounds off the home side, then they have to go... and I'm someone that watches biased WWE commentary but he's worse.

The ONLY thing that was a positive about tonight's game (apart from Moller playing great minutes) was the sell out crowd of whom went home happy tonight.

Must be nice having a someone like McCarron slide into the line up when your Marquee Australian player is down, and producing the way he did tonight. Also, Barlow has been very impressive so far this season, best PF so far this year? Surely in the Boomers team next qualifying window? Great to see Melbourne play some small ball and bring Bogut out to defend on the perimeter, and props to see DJ Kennedy having himself a game tonight as well.

Perth won in Adelaide and lost in Brisbane

WTF was that? If this was the only NBL game the French visitor has watched, I can understand him being unimpressed. Outside some excellent rim protection from Bogut, there was a lot of rubbish basketball. It was by far the worst NBL game I've watched this year.

I've enjoyed watching Kings games this year, but this game was terrible.

It's all good for a commentator to get excited by good play, but the way Dwayne Russell is so over-the-top enthusiastic throughout the game, even during average to poor play, make him lose all credibility. His exaggerated descriptions of average play devalues the genuinely good play. A player could take a crap on centre court and Dwayne would probably marvel at its world class colour and form.

I've noticed over the years Dwayne has a tendency to call clear three pointers shot by Melbourne's opponents as "twos". It's as if he thinks by calling them as such he may be able to influence the scoreboard in order to trim the other team's tally? or he's that dumb that he's wishful thinking out loud cheerleading for United. Utterly baffling.

"WTF was that? If this was the only NBL game the French visitor has watched, I can understand him being unimpressed. Outside some excellent rim protection from Bogut, there was a lot of rubbish basketball. It was by far the worst NBL game I've watched this year."

I think the refs were scared of being criticised for over-calling and let the game become a wrestling match. The easiest way to make your product look bad is to let the defence dictate.

That's what the NBL did for many years, and even though the standard on court was good most observers thought is was poor because it was too hard for the offence to shine. Last night was a good advertisement as for why you need to call the game by the rules.

Yeah Dwayne Russell is grating on me. He treats the experienced bball watcher with contempt that we need to give the players nicknames and be over the top to enjoy the game.

Maybe AFL watchers need it but he needs to tone it down about 98%.

Also to our France visitor, you sound like a professional troll.

Melbourne doing very well. I thought they would have dropped more by losing Prather and Wesley, and now with Goulding injured, but they are doing well. Yes deserve to be rated the best at this point in the season.

Really didn't realise how lacking in depth Sydney are.

I would play Pineau over Wear at this point. Comes up with a great hustle play every time he's on the court.

school holidays ATM in France ?

Watching other basketball from around the world, whether that is NBA games full of bland homers calling the game, or the painful solo commentary on livebasketball.tv, it makes me actually appreciate NBL commentary, thanks to the mostly unbiased retired NBL players offering some good insight and banter. Dwayne Russell is the main culprit in bringing NBL commentary back down.

As for the refereeing influencing the game by letting some calls go, no doubt that was an issue, but that is a partial excuse for the poor product on display. The NBL is full of many classic contests when referees decided to just let teams play without interference. In this game there were plenty of open looks missing, blown dunks, terrible free-throw shooting by Sydney. When you have Kickert, a 90% free-throw shooter, going 0/2 and Newley, a career 70% free-throw shooter, go 0/4, something odd is going on. Sydney's offense generally looked stalled, and I don't think United's defense deserves so much of the credit in that.

"The NBL is full of many classic contests when referees decided to just let teams play without interference."

I think a lot more classic games come after refs call the game by the rules, particularly early, so defenders know they can't get away with mauling and offensive players attack with confidence. As soon as defenders get away with illegal checking and holding early the whole nature of the game changes and it becomes a grind for the offence.

I feel that's something NBL refs are doing well at the moment as a general rule, and players and coaches have adjusted, with the result being a high-scoring, fast-paced and entertaining first few rounds, just as last season was pretty good in that regard.

Sydney need an athletic big man with an inside game. Bogut is not a low post scorer, he gets his points from pick and roll and clean ups. If sydneys outside shot is not falling, like last nigth, they need to throw it down low and work inside out.

I would bring Kickert into the starting line up, he was the only one who showed anything last night.

Regarding their FT shooting, sometimes you just have a shit game and that was it for them last night.

And yet all people do is complain about soft fouls. Even last night.

"Watching other basketball from around the world, whether that is NBA games full of bland homers calling the game, or the painful solo commentary on livebasketball.tv, it makes me actually appreciate NBL commentary, thanks to the mostly unbiased retired NBL players offering some good insight and banter. "

I generally don;t listen to much of the commentary when watching the games but I chose to pay more attention on Sunday, in the 36ers vs Brisbane game. I was disappointed in the lack of insight shown by the ex players commentating that game. They seemed to lack a feel for the way the game was unfolding in front of them. I was pretty surprised at that, given both had played as point guards during their NBL careers.

In addition, they added little in the way of interesting colour commentary. Just pub banter back and forth between themselves. No interesting factoids about players/coaches etc on the court that piqued my interest. Maybe I missed that by skipping through the pre-game material, but I expect those sorts of gems to be inserted through the game commentary.

My overall impression is that the ex-players were operating with too little thought for the viewer. As above it felt like they were at the pub, watching the game on the big screen and bantering back and forth among themselves. I felt like I was just overhearing their conversations rather than being the target for them.

I don't normally pay attention to the commentary style, so that game may not have been representative of the full range of commentary teams, this season. That said, I think there's room for significant improvement if the commentators think more about the people listening at home than the people sitting next to them.

PeterJohn, I would think their lack of insights and details is more likely due to instructions from above to dumb it down for the casual viewer rather than to lift it up for the knowledgeable fan. (Which frustrates the sh*t out of me as a long-term fan and coach!!!).

Homicide did that game, didn't he? Any game he's involved with devolves into that garbage almost immediately. It's his schtick.

I liked Barlow at centre . pretty to watch .
Bogut off tooo long on the bench in the last qtr.....looked out of it when he finally got on.
(unlikely the french can do wot randle does)

Interesting. NBL.TV should do a piece on him.

I have noticed the slipping over of players a lot this year and it seems to be on the QANTAS decal at the free throw line at each venue. I assume one manufacturer supplies the whole league with the decals so it could be worth someone at NBL HQ raising this issue before we see a serious injury occur.

Copeland and Gaze looked more puzzled than anybody , with Barlow playing centre.

Kinda favorite of mine ... Kelsey double double Griffin and David Barlow