We don't mind barracking for Adelaide. We love and appreciate South Australia.

without you guys we'd have to deal directly with those f****** from Victoria and New South Wales.

This season is turning out to be a cracker

United and Perth still battling for top spot and playing this week

Hawks, Phoenix, Kings and Bullets battling for 3rd and 4th with plenty of matchups there too, eg Phoenix play Bullets twice more, Kings play Hawks.

IIRC Perth won a title, after coming within one play of being swept in the quarter-final. That's Basketball. :-)

I'd say this game got interesting.
With top spot still up for grabs, both teams have everything to play for. And being without Cotton evens it up.

Naturally I think this will be a low-scoring slog. I think these are the top two defensive teams in the league, and Cotton leaves a big offensive hole.

perf got it

IIRC Perth won a title, after coming within one play of being swept in the quarter-final.

Drewy and the Tigers crushed Perf dreams

and we booed them for it.

I think that block was on a guy called Reese, is it Jason Reese, very good inside player but perfectly timed block.

Drewy and the Tigers crushed Perf dreams

It is likely not in the Perth DNA to drop games intentionally, but here is an interesting scenario.

This is based on Perth would rather face ILL in the SF than a full strength SEM.

Would PER sacrifice this game (and any chance of 1st place) and allow ILL a better chance to stay 3rd place for the SF?

This leaves MEL to play SEM in the other Semis.

If PER win against ILL and that is no guarantee at all, it is possible (even likely given more and more exposure sites / positive cases are reaslied daily) that playing in Melbourne is out of the question so they could play home and neutral ground.

I think PER is likely to beat ILL, but unlikely to beat SEM and even more so against MEL.

Man that Crawford block on Reese and his put-back slam against the Cannons are the two moments I remember the most supporting the Cats as a kid.

What is going on at Illawarra?

Perth were about $2.00 last night now plummeted to $1.68.

This game will be decided by Harvey's performance.

LIFT you Wildcats.

Solid D by the hawks all night. Perth haven't been able to get anything under the basket. Blanchfeild gone missing again.

Draw up the last play for him...

Feels like Hawks still had to play out of their skin to beat a Cotton-less Perth.
If Cotton doesn't come back just give the title to Melb and save everyone the airfares.

Great contest. Congrats Hawks.

It took two hours for this to go from a round where a lot was on the line to a round where nothing is on the line.

Well done hawks!

I wouldn't mind if the ladder stays the way it is.

Great game, well done Harvey's...I mean Hawks. Thought the Cats a decent run with the refs but Hawks D was superb.
Hopefully this is the semi matchup

The one game I want Perth to win, and they lose

And yeah, fair chance Perth dropped this game on purpose

Finishing 2nd no biggie if they'll likely play a Melbourne team meaning neutral/ home/n/h/n

And losing tonight gave them a better chance of getting there.

No question Perth will be perfectly happy avoiding SEM and wouldn't mind playing Illawarra.

Fair chance LV is talking absolute bollocks yet again

So many conspiracy theorists on here.

Goorj such a bad coach

[No one can answer why Perth are meant to be scared of SEM, a slightly above average team.]

Because they're 18-15 despite having been smashed by injuries this season, and now are finally healthy

They've done alright against Perth this season, unlike Hawks who Perth have absolutely dominated

What more reasons do you need?

18-15 and a healthy percentage too

Not scare of SEM, but SEM are definitely a better chance at beating United than Hawks.

Good result for Perth though, they can beat Hawks but would struggle v SEM without Cotton.

SEM beat Perth quite convincingly a couple of times this season before Broekhoff was on their roster and the cats had a healthy cotton.

The cats wouldn't be scared either way but i'd much rather them be facing the hawks in a semi final series.

Whilst it would certainly be conceivable that a scenario exists in which Perth were happy to drop the game, evidence suggests otherwise.

Wani and Tommy got no minutes during the game.
Perth finished with their strongest rotation on the floor, even after Norto fouled out.

Game could have gone either way. Hawks just better on the night.

First place was still up for grabs, and Perth would have backed themselves at home against MU, even sans Cotton.
Even if the lockdown is still in effect come GF time, Perth won't be keen on upto 3 games at a "neutral" venue. If MU make the GF, but can't play at home, the league will rightly do whatever they can to accommodate them elsewhere. Whether that's a hub, bubble, Bendigo, Tasmania, all potentially meaning more travel for Perth.

Perth would be happy to play SEM in the SF, because it's more likely the lockdown would still be in place, and since Perth finished higher, they could make a good case to play all games in Perth, or at the very least not be inconvenienced by the game at a neutral venue. Plus Mitchell has sod all finals experience, as opposed to Goorjian.

Imagine the uproar if Cats and United get through and all 5 games are played in Perth. :P

I don't think the rest of the league is as selfish as Perth or Sydney fans.

WA border governance means we won’t see that in all likelihood but if we did see games where Perth played "away" in Perth for some games especially regular season games, that would be been great for the league because it would have delivered crowd and much needed revenue and great atmosphere.

I think the selfish reactions on here pretty much show the disconnect from reality people have in understanding the disruption Covid causes and the fragility of the NBL financially. I care more about simply having a league surviving than having one struggle and suffer because I want to see my teams with their exact allocation.

WA border governance means we won't see that in all likelihood

I think the selfish reactions on here pretty much show the disconnect from reality people have in understanding the disruption Covid causes and the fragility of the NBL financially.

Didn't WA just close the border to NSW?
Aren’t Melbourne playing in Sydney?

The point is, WAs approach could very easily make things quite tough depending on the scenario, like Utd playing in Sydney. Whilst NSW makes it very easy as they’re generally the most open borders. I’m not here to predict a scenario because covid does covid things.

And re the NBL Cup, SEM needs to be mentioned alongside Melbourne.

I think the NBL Cup was a good idea, and it may have been done as a business savvy idea, it may have been done as a covid related plan, it may have been done to get revenue from the Vic gov. It’s tough to criticise the latter two factors with the benefit of hindsight of how things pan out.

I want to see the NBL be innovative and savvy. I liked the idea

Yeah that was news to me as well. It feels like WA hasn't been any tougher than most other states in recent times re. border restrictions.
They're letting Richmond & Essendon shift the "Dreamtime" AFL match from the MCG to Optus Stadium for this weekend.

"Victoria always getting the Boomers qualifiers"

What's wrong with that KR?

Seems logical to have the big cities host the qualifiers.

Yes, big cities like Bendigo, which has hosted more Boomers qualifiers than Perth and Sydney combined.

Good thing KET is here to offer state-based critiscm of handling Covid

Ok