I'd be happy if both teams somehow wind up with a loss tonight.

Plumlee has been a game changer.

Team needs to all buy in, every possession defense and offense. Hitting the glass is a must. Long, Trimble and Goulding need to step up and create scoreboard pressure.

This is it. Is United hungry? Is United.....United?

Why are people giving United a chance?

Maybe cos they smashed Perth last time, and were unlucky not to win the 2 before that.

Watch Long turn into a 3pt shooter like he does every time he goes up against a 5 man that's bigger than him.

Nicely put, anon #243

Hope I'm wrong, but I feel this is the type of game the Cats will drop. :/

I hope you're wrong too Senator 11.

Perth are still working it out with Plumlee, he dominated but it was at the expense of Cotton's 3pt shot (think I read he only took 1 after half time) and Terriko's play. That combined with a bench unit that has not done much in the last few weeks I can see the Cat's dropping this one... hope I'm wrong

I have no special insight.

But Perth are due for a loss and United are due for a win.

Perth may be focused on the Sydney game instead.

White ruled out:
https://thewest.com.au/sport/perth-wildcats/perth-wildcats-suffer-huge-injury-blow-with-terrico-white-ruled-out-just-hours-before-melbourne-united-clash-ng-b881446932z

Does give United an opening.

United for me now :)

Klay Steindl to explode.

The way White played on Saturday...glad it was an injury because he was rubbish. Steindle will step up.

After the White injury update the odds have reversed and now United are favourites with some books. Fill up time on the 'Cats to fund this year's Hoops Christmas Party?

Have the Cats ever won an open roof game?

"Have the Cats ever won an open roof game?"

I don't honestly ever remember playing an open roof game?

My recollection was there was one a couple of seasons ago and maybe one in the 90's against the Magic?

Look, Melbourne deserves to be favourites, we will try our best to get the win, but they will be tough to defend on their home court. Melbourne favourites but we will be having a crack. I got to go as Foxtel wants a pregame interview.

Lost the last open roof game, all depends on the mind set of both team's. United are good enough and if Perth want it enough.

Yeah strange call there, but can't say I’ve seen many/any defenders hang off the rim off a shot fake, either.

Not sure why Mitch is complaining there, his backcourt buddy gets that call all the time.

Doesn't look like a great crowd for United.

Perth win = Melb cooked, wasted money, should have paid Randle...
Melb win = Home cooking!
Yawn!

Not having Terrico hurts the Wildcats. Allows double teaming on Cotton. No one else can stand up.

Good strategy by Melb to go at Plumlee and go inside and get him his 2nd foul. They've been a shell of themselves since he left the court, outside of some Cotton brilliance.

God Long is awful defensively.

Seriously, these closed roof games the shooting is always terrible, just give up on them.

Is the crowd painted on? Really need to fix the mics on these games as there is no atmosphere coming through over the commentating stream.

Isn't Melbourne Park hosting the tennis?

Wildcats can't shoot 3s, can't see them winning as they need to penetrate but are a bad team at finishing around the basket.

Melbourne making shooting themselves in the foot an art form.

Corey, Long just had a touch on the block against a smaller defender and threw it out to the perimeter instead of going up with it as the double team came, I imagine that's why h's on the bench.

Melbourne on 5 fouls = Still home cooking or??

"Isn't Melbourne Park hosting the tennis?" Are people really that out of touch with the real world? That's the 2nd most stupidest quote of the year in ONE day!

This is Hoops Forum, dont rule out the possibility of a more stupid comment just around the corner!

Mitch Norton should be banned from driving to the hoop.

Vintage flop from Wagstaff, not rewarded.

And the SBS feed is dead

Hahaha hahahahahahahahahaha Wagstaff

SBS on Demand has died

That airball floater by Plumlee. Wow.

Norton again driving right into defenders.

Stiendl airball. Way to waste the run. Awful.

Hoops Christmas Party is officially cancelled.

Norton should be sacked so should open air games

SBS froze again, in the shot, Norton on the ground. Surprise surprise! Sack him.

SBS on demand kept fucking freezing during the last quarter. Least Melbourne got the W so I'm happy about that.

Hoops, where every single regular season loss dramatically signals the end of a team's championship chances.

One good thing about Martin's absence is that it should have by now convinced the Wildcats that Norton is not up to be the starting PG next season. Last quarter, 7 points down, still 18 on the shot clock, drives into 4 defenders. Turnover, score, game over. He does these dumb drives every week and doesn’t seem to learn

Shit game all round, Sydney lock up top spot now down to Perth and cairns for top 2.

United played hard on D. The effort was there.

But the offense was too often sloppy and going through the motions.

No Martin, no White, Plumlee hampered by foul trouble, Perth missing everything from outside, anything less than a double digit win is unacceptable

JLA, Kidd stood up. Satisfying to see. Those two could be wildcards from here, given Barlow is struggling.

Gaze is right- not a playoff level performance. But still in the hunt.

Good to get the season series against Perth, could've very easily been a sweep too.

oh no

Gees our bench is crap.
When everything is going well, they can light it up, but call on them to step up into starting roles, and they shit the bed.

I don't think anyone has ever said Norton is a gun. The question was whether he would fit into a Perth lineup that doesn't really on the PG to score heavily. He's been a fantastic backup for an ageing Damo. But he's not a 30 minute starter, especially with no backup.
And FMD I have no damn idea why he persists with those drives into the defenders. I was sick of watching that 3 games ago, and its getting worse.

Steindl needs to see a shrink, or something. One game he's unstoppable, the next he's off target, and then he just loses his bottle completely.

3 games ago, Jook played the best game I have ever seen from him. Tonight he was back to being crap, and looking like he didn't know his role.
Some of those fouls on Plums were a bit stiff, and I don't expect Jook to replicate what he does, but between the two we should be able to get 40 aolid minutes, even if all Jook is doing is crashing the boards. We lead the league in O-Boards and tonight we got pasted.

Take 2 starters out of a team and get a 3rd into foul trouble and they're suddenly not unstoppable. Major eureka moment.
I hope Bryce is ok.

Apparently the Perth players were abused and/or threatened after the game tonight. Anyone see or hear it?

It was after the game when cooldowns finished and the players were walking off

You ain't going to win to many games when you shot 2 from 19 from the 3pt line, nothing else cost us the game last night other than that, we seem to live and die by the three, last night we died.

"Steindl needs to see a shrink, or something. One game he's unstoppable, the next he's off target, and then he just loses his bottle completely."

Such a large percentage of Steindl's points come off of low % shots, it shouldn't be that surprising. Some games he knocks them down, but most he doesn't. I always say I'd rather see Steindl jacking up contested 3s than Cotton or White any time we play Perth. If he catches fire and drops 20 on you, so be it.

Steindl is still shooting 39% for the season, which is fine IMO. It's better than Terrico.
Some nights they won't fall but it's not like anything else was working for us either. Shit happens.

I thought the refs were very average both ways.

A lot of calls that didn't impact the game in anyway, only to see similar contact let go up the other end.

I get that teams/coaches are always looking to get the other team past 4 fouls and into the bonus but apart from that there were way to many calls that could have been let go and made the game flow and not have key players on the bench with foul trouble.

It must be very frustrating for players to try and adjust.

It didn't impact the end result as MU were the better team on the night and Wildcats missed Martin and White.

Lost that game by continually jacking it up from the 3 point line.

Lost that game because Melbourne played better than us.
You can't just say ok let's not shoot threes anymore this game, and expect to win. The game plan relies on perimeter shooting being a weapon.
Plenty of negatives in that game for the Cats but personally I'm fine with filing it under "open air games are always shit" and moving on.
Really ugly game all round but United did a better job of finding things that worked. They defended us very well too.

I dont know how Steindl's % is that high. I feel like the entire season he has missed an epic amount of shots, and only in the past 3 or 4 games he was magically sinking some.
But again, this game is taking wild off balance shots at TERRIBLE times, when we need an easy confidence boosting 2 pts.

Not sure about the Norton bagging going on, I like that he drives and tries to break things up.

IMO, get rid of Steindl, Vague, Britt, and even Terrico has been dismal.

MAN i miss Prather......

Oh, and add Gleeson to the cut list.....

WTF is he thinking by keeping Steindl, playing Vague instead of Majok, and playing Britt instead of Buluk for so long.

Britt turns the ball over and looks generally scared dribbling.

"I was at the game last night and I was hoping to see Luke Travers, after following him for years as a junior. Any insight into why he was not there? Thank you."
I don't know exactly how it works. Could be that the Cats haven't actually promoted anyone to replace Martin as an Injury replacement, such that Britt was playing as our one allowed DP.

Steindl has to take off balance shots, other teams know how lethal he is from outside, so he rarely gets the chance to spot up for an easier shot. Most of his plays are set up on catching the ball at the same time as going around a screen so he gets that space for a free shot. Not ideal, but it's what they practice and the best way for him to get involved on offence.

P.S. Can open air games. RAC can do open air games too, do we do it, no, cos we don't need some dumb gimmick to sell tickets that takes away from the quality of the game.

Terrico was expected to play or you probably would have seen travers, the shooting hurt us but when you consider the foul trouble by midway in the first we were down 2 permanent starters (Martin and white), plumlee, Norton, and soon after Major, even Britt had town in the first. I'd say that caused us some issues.

"Perth don't do it because they have a bloody massive cube scoreboard hanging from said roof!! SMH. Some people are stupid."

Dickhead, this goes under the floor for Hopman Cup so the roof can be open. Another flog anon.

"White does a lot more than score, he was sorely missed."

Stops double teams on Cotton for 1!

Steindl lethal from outside??!?
This conversation keeps happening, even the commentators call him "Sniper". When has he earned this?
He had about three games where he was connecting. Nick Kay has been more reliable from outside.
I dont see how he has earned the right to throw up wild outside shots, he really isn't a threat to any team unless he is having a rare lucky night. He even misses sitters.
Granted, he has a nice inside drive with his height, which i wish he would do more.

"...one bad game fire everyone" Have you seen one bad game, or several??

I love Terrico, but if he is only going launch threes in the 4th quarter of a finals game, then thats a worry. He doesn't defend, he has slow offensive movement, and he certainly isnt aggressive enough inside. I only hope he gets more confidence to drive with the support of Plumlee drawing defenders attention.

I am. Who cares about the scores. Scores are just a social construct man. Don't be such a sheeple. Live your life in full live UHD and you won't need any replays man. The clearest view comes after you take the technology away man it's like whoah. Detox your basketball. That's real activation.

So how do they show replays/scores etc during the Tennis? There are big screens at either end of the stadium, common sense is a wonderful thing when you have access to it.

Perth don't do it because they have a bloody massive cube scoreboard hanging from said roof!! SMH. Some people are stupid.

"Perth don't do it because they have a bloody massive cube scoreboard hanging from said roof!! SMH. Some people are stupid."

Dickhead, this goes under the floor for Hopman Cup so the roof can be open. Another flog anon.

"Under the floor?"

I have been told the floor opens up and the "massive cube" lowers under the floor. No idea if its true, but it is what I was told...

I just emailed RAC Arena to find out once and for all where that cubic mass disappears too when not in use. :P

The tennis floor is permanent. The frame for the score cube would just go out the back, but I'm pretty sure the scoreboard panels themselves just get reassembled into flat screens for the tennis.

Who was the guy (coaching staff or something) wearing sunnies on his head on the wildcats bench?

Looked very unprofessional! Like he had come from a bbq or something!

Sort your shit out Cats!

"DP's only play home games. They don't travel with the team unless they have been promoted as injury replacements"

Err, no

Those rules were changed 3~4 years ago.
Teams can now take one DP on the road, and play 2 at home.
Travers has travelled, as a DP, for some games.

When Wani was out injured at the start of the year, they promoted Pozoglou to replace him. Presumably because they knew it would be long term.

I don't know if they bothered formerly replacing Damo. Need is minimal when they can play Britt as a DP anyway.

Furthermore Travers has gained minimal court time anayway, and is more of a long-term prospect. So I doubt he would have played much even if they had taken him.

"The tennis floor is permanent. The frame for the score cube would just go out the back, but I'm pretty sure the scoreboard panels themselves just get reassembled into flat screens for the tennis."

Could be.

The whole point was that RAC can do open roof too, but we don't cos it doesn't make any sense and is a stupid idea.

Wildcats needs to play Pozoglou more. He is a gun and future star. He will end up l I'm e Goulding. DP for the Wildcats, no court time, left Wildcats, becomes superstar.

Since there's no Cats vs Kings thread yet, I'll chuck this here

@SydneyKings
INJURY UPDATE:
Andrew Bogut (back) and Didi Louzada (knee) have not travelled with the team and will miss Saturday's Round 18 clash against the Perth Wildcats.

"The whole point was that RAC can do open roof too, but we don't cos it doesn't make any sense and is a stupid idea."

Indeed

And I disagree with all those posturing the fake maturity saying "oh well shit happens", etc.

This was a diabolical performance by Perth.

Melbourne are done. They were done before the game, and they're still done now.
Perth on the other hand, have had a few opportunities to make a real crack at top spot, but inevitably stumble over teams they should be beating.
What's missing is that "killer instinct" they've had in past years.

Our only saving grace is that Cairns have 3 difficult road games to finish. They're unlikely to overhaul us, and should be easy pickings in the SF.

Unfortunately we have handed 1st place to Sydney on a Silver Platter, giving them the opportunity to rest their ageing legs, give Moller every chance to get back to fitness, and carry Lisch through the last 3 games.

Look at last season (and previous.) When Starters went down the Bench would step up. But on Wednesday the entire bench was crap.

The Finals are going to be interesting. The cats are the best Finals team, and Trev the best coach. Typically a couple of players will lift and play their asses off. Who will it be this year?

In relation to massive cube at RAC Arena. It can remain suspended with the roof open as long as it doesn't interfere with other production equipment, otherwise it is dismantled and stored away.