JT now throwing cliffhangers in for good measure. Nice.

Welcome back J Toft.
Sydney even with superstar Moller out should win easily.

Oh, I did have "insert number" in "< >" but it must see it as program logic...

Kings by how much jack wanna bet the spread

Sydney by 13+

Cooks shooting technique looks average at best

Yeah I was surprised to see he wasn't a terrible shooter in Europe, because he hasn't looked like a guy that should be shooting them so far over here. Good first half, Hawks made some good adjustments on both ends and if not for some hot shooting from our bench would probably be in the lead.

Yes Angus. Hawks have surprised me. Down by 5 at the half. Take out some hot 3's from the Kings & the Hawks are right in it.
Commentators saying Ware may be tired after chasing Cotton around in Perth game is a joke. That game was 3 days ago. A professional athlete can’t recover in 3 days.... Seriously!
More of Andrew Gaze. Less of all others

Certainly not a coaching master class from Will Weaver again tonight

A couple of bad rotations from Weaver, but I think it's mostly the starters playing like shit (as Ware misses two FTs)

Kings are cooked. Game over.

Gaze calling: "Sydney's vaunted defence" missing tonight.

Comedy gold

Hawks making it interesting

Hawks are butchering this lead. Pathetic play

Man, grida really crashing back to earth after an impressive game.

Still have zero faith in the Kings getting anything here

Is that Cortez Groves on the Hawks bench?

I don't understand why you don't just post Tate up on Grida.

Cooks is absolute rubbish

So the Kings regressing in December wasn't only a Gaze thing. Is this three seasons in a row?

Hahahaha what a horrible turnover.

Cooks threw that assist right to his dad.

Pathetic offensively, our D was enough to let us win these games throughout the early part of the season, but with Lisch and Moller (and Didi to extent) out I think it's that end where we've really taken a hit.

Hats off to the Hawks though. And glad we get to close out the year with another USF

"Hawks are barely NBL quality without Melo"... Gold!!...

At the rate this new cashed up owner is going we'll have a long overdue Urbandictionary definition for that chocolate-covered honeycomb snack in no time.

Yes that is Cortez Groves with the Hawks they signed him as some sort of non-assistant developmental coach.

btw Well done Hawkies!

David slays Goliath, bottom team beats the top team great for the NBL.

I'm still not convinced the Kings are all that. They aren't scoring proportionately to their talent: even when they were 8/12 from three in the in the second quarter they could barely manage 40 points.

Weaver MIA during the 4th and let the Hawks seize control. Maybe that's the "calmness" everyone keeps going on about...

"The out rage over the Cook signing has quickly gone quiet."

Understandably so: barring injury he was going to be a Boomer, and hasn't looked anywhere near that standard. It will be interesting to see how much his injury/recovery is holding him back.

Out of interest on a small sample size, Kings are +29 with Cooks on the court since he arrived and -42 with him off.

[LV must have gone on holidays again. So weird that he's been silent since he spent all last week spruiking that sydney and Melbourne are a step above Perth.]

Titles are won in March, not December

Perth, Sydney and United will be your top 3 come playoffs.

The Violet Crumbles are back...

Kings and their 4 imports will be winning it all when they are back healthy.

Nothing changed this week

Sydney are still the most likely team to hoist the trophy, followed by United, followed by Perth

No one else has more than an outsiders chance.

LV I think everyone knows it's Sydney and Perth then Cairns.
United aren't that good.

Off to celebrate news years eve.
Happy new year All.

My bro Perthworld will be on line later ( not much planned for him) so talk in 2020.
#seeincredible

Maybe Weaver should point the finger at his own players you're not going to win too many games only shooting 45% from the FT line.

Bogut really does look like he's played on a year too long.

Weaver needs to cop all the blame. Crazy idea: play your starting 5 in the final five minutes. The aim is to win but he's treated the past month like a pre-season tournament. Tell Casper to stop jacking double teamed or contested threes. Hey, tell him to attack the hoop once in a while. What a fuckin crazy idea. Take advantage of the nearly always skewed matchup Tate has on his defender. Tell Deshon Taylor to stop shooting. That guy should put the cue in the rack. About 7/45 from 3pt on the season. Everyone can see its his weakest skill, even weaker than his dribble. Tell Bogut to actually give an eff and play hard in 50% of his games.

But nah, let's overthink a short season and play everyone 20 minutes a game. Let's play Shaun Bruce in crunch time (only matched by Grida playing crunch minutes tbh). This team shouldn't lose to the Hawks. This team shouldn't have to put up NBA range threes for 4-5 consecutive possessions in the fourth against them. I've sat through nearly all of the past four seasons' games and this is right up there as the most shameful loss.

If it was Gleeson or Vickerman or Wright they'd cop all the blame. Weaver deserves a heap of shit for his rotations and the lethargy his team plays with. He just got outcoached by Matt Flinn, a glorified NBL1 coach.

Tell me any of this is wrong.

I've watched every post game news conference for the year and don't remember Gleeson or Vickerman or Wright cop the blame for any loss. Coach didn't miss any free throw s. Coach didn't throw balls out of bounds. Lost five out of last seven and still tied for 1st. They'll be OK. But it's sure fun listening to you piss and moan.

"Let's play Shaun Bruce in crunch time (only matched by Grida playing crunch minutes tbh)."

They were two of the most effective players on the night. I thought Weaver took too long to get Bruce in there in the last quarter.

Weaver took too long to do ANYTHING in the 4th...

I was there last night and Sydney just went off te boil, like it didn't matter. Hawks wanted it more and got the win. How the hell the Kings won't win this comp with that team is hard to imagine. It is so stacked that it cannot fail. Hawks has so many Aussies kids on there and there's Bogut, Ware and the rest being subbed on and off. I think the Hawks were all aussie a fair bit of the game. Aj, Blanch, Tim, Naar, Glover so amazing effort. I might have been wrong but was their four imports on the court for the Kings? That ain't great for developing Australian basketball.

"Weaver MIA during the 4th and let the Hawks seize control."

There was one bit where Hawks went on a roll, tied the game after a Hawks basket, and everyone goes to their benches expecting a Sydney T/Out (I think Sydney had 3 T/outs left at the time). They were wrong and refs had to wave everyone back on court!

Yep, and then the Hawks went on to pull ahead by ~5 before Sydney called a timeout. Bizarre stuff from Weaver.