Melbourne has had perths number but this could be the game Perth prevails and prevails heavily given how bad the United has looked this season.

I expect a huge bounce back game from a round United team but Perth to prevail by 5.

Perth 96 to United 91

Perth Number Lately. Not overall

On last outings, Perth looked good and Melbourne crapy, still got a few big name imports Melbourne who should do better.
Perth by eight.

I got Melbourne by 5pts, they will be fired up but I suspect Melbourne to go down to the JackJumpers by 10pts. I could have it the wrong way around but will see tonight.

Can't see Melbourne with the current roster and form beating Perth. I do think they will be much better then that garbage they put forward against Sydney but I can’t see them wining in Perth.

Perth ONLY looked good last time because there 3's fell.
Its as simple as that.
Nothing more, nothing less

@ Jacket, I think we all got the message mate. So in your opinion who's going to shoot the most threes and win?.

That is the million dollar question Dunkman.

I propose that instead of playing the game, just set up the racks around the perimeter like the 3 point contest at the all star game and see who wins that.

Thats all the game is now.

At least this way it would save on injuries, length of game etc.

We get the point Jacket, you think basketball is just a 3 point barrage... you can simply stop watching basketball and give it a rest on here now.

"Now you look at a stat sheet after a game and the first thing you look at is the threes. If you made threes and the other team didn't, you win. You don’t even look at the rebounds or the turnovers or how much transition D was involved. You don’t even care. That’s how much an impact the three-point shot has and it’s evidenced by how everybody plays."

- Gregg Popovich

Hard to see United winning this

But stranger things have happened and do happen all the time. So I'll remain optimistic.... at least until tipoff

Barlow starting, dean mixing it up

Jacket yells at cloud

Barlow playing well for someone who retired just recently. Cotton is marvel, still the best player in the league by far. Humphries is a defensive liability.

Wtf why is Kayo now showing baseball

Who the f... knows. It's a disgrace.

Yep kayo has screwed the pooch there. Back now.

$27.50 or whatever it is, just to watch basketball and they miss the first four minutes of the third quarter to run baseball ads...

Back at 6 minutes in the third. NFI.

It's Espn's issue, had to check I was on the right channel! SMH.

Lol @ Humphries telling Malauch to catch the ball after throwing a horrendous no look pass 6 feet away from him

Finally the quarter is over, now I get to find out how the baseball story finishes.

This game has some weird calls and no calls. Can't predict what the refs are going to do

Favourite ref call - sideline out of bounds, or offensive foul?

United got some calls early but my goodness these refs have helped Perth in the 4th

Gotta feel sorry for Bryce with your running mate being Mitch Norton

Might look different on tv, but I didn't see any homecooking at the game

Humphries was flipping awesome tonight

Tucker's provided the likely highlight of the week for 2 of 3 weeks so far with his block of Cotton

Mitch Norton master class in the 4th quarter to get United over the line

Another game where the team with the most 3s win.
Shock horror

Hopefully the headline on tomorrow's sports news is the same as today's national news

"Melbourne Weather the storm in Perth"

No Humphries was great in the last quarter, his defence was bad early.

Cracking game and the best side on the night got the win. I think cats got rest Cotton more during games or by seasons end he'll be either injured or the tank will be empty. Blanchfield has had one of his two good games a season last week, didn’t back it up today.

Great game United. Very impressive showing after the insipid effort last week

7 in a row at RAC. Incredible

So what's the point of instant replays if they don't review the Norton shot with 4 minutes left?

I checked the slowmo, he got it off with 0.1secs, so it counts anyway, but surely it needed to be checked. That should be the exact situation the replay system exists for

Agreed Humphries wasn't showing enough pressure on the 3s, and then struggled defending Travers too

But he was an effective inside target in the 2nd half and patrolled the paint

It was only when he was subbed off with 6.5 left (after an incorrect illegal screen call resulted in his 3rd foul) that Perth got the lead back.

Think Perth missed Thomas tonight, United got lots of O boards and stuff around the hoop

United missed Ili on Cotton though

Full credit to United. Mixed up the contributors, and I thought Humphries - dodgy as he is a lot of the time - was probably the difference. We miss having an inside target.

Perth still having some syncing issues on offense, which is reasonable with new players and coach. Hopefully it runs smoother as season goes on

Confusion.refs are just such Eneabba. Never know what call going to be unless as clear as glad wrappers. Bryce is mauled no calls. How is it consistently poor ref's ruin games. It's the game nor ref's who think they.must be seen heard..
Don't start on poor display at sixers. So much contact no calls.

Interior D and rebounding still an issue for Perth

Very poor refereeing once again, and no consistency. Soft stuff is whistled, obvious contact on drives ignored, and too many stoppages.

Reply #901328

From Cairns game. Rest my case..same shit different game... who doesn't recognise the issues and wants to promote game. Sort out core hand break on great product..

Lv he worked out how to stop LT, bloodied him up and sent him out the game, no call.

How do we feel about Tucker? I'd like to see him play ball, thought his flopping amd flailing was a disgrace and a blight for a player that calls himself the best import.... ref's lapped it up though. Imagine if he took the shot Travers did??? With his leap he would probably have landed atop the arena roof!!!

Humphries screened Norton

Who got Travers? I can't recall

And no shoulder roll on the Humphries/Norton screen, unlike the Wagstaff one which concussed Barker

(It was a fair play and probably not even a moving screen, but he did move the shoulder slightly)

Tucker has disappointed me a little. It's a combination of the offense not involving him, and him not going and getting it.

Fundamentally though he needs to shoot better. He's under 30% for the season

Barlow into the starting 5 appeared to help United with their start. Much better intensity on defence and movement on offence. I agree that Tucker has been disappointing so far, the missing layups and while his outside shot was slightly better I'm certainly not seeing an All NBL style import guard as per the hype.

Great win though and let’s hope they can build from this.

Humphries failed by not giving Norton enough time and distance. It's actually a simple concept.

Barlow was great, it's amazing how he keeps doing it.

Jesse Wagstaff has been invited to make a submission to the Game Review Panel (GRP) regarding an incident during last night's game against Melbourne United.

Wagstaff has been cited by the GRP for unduly rough play and has until 7:30am WST on Sunday to make a submission to the GRP.

Once the submission has been made and the GRP review is complete, more information will be provided.

Any idea why Jessie Wagstaff has been sited by the NBL for rough play?

Refs got it right, for me to say that is unusual. Good solid screen.

Old school basketballer in me would say - his team mates should have called that out ie he should have known the screen was there.

Not a fan of Wagstaff's history of flopping but do not think there is much in this

Screen was fine. Okwera was calling out to Barker but he didn't hear it over venue noise.

Wagstaff is a grub but in this instance I see nothing wrong with the screen he set.

The optics of it look bad due to Barker's low head position which has prompted this review.

In rugby union there is a major problem with over zealous officiating at the moment whereby players are penalised and even sent off purely based on where the opposing player's head was during contact, irrespective of context. For example if an attacking player slips due to wet ground while simultaneously being legally tackled during their fall the defender is pinged for head high contact through no fault or their own.

NBL please don't go down this route.

Slight shoulder roll but Wagstaff can argue he was bracing for contact

The NBL counter argument would be he should've seen the head coming and has a duty of care

Considering no one other than the nbl seems to think there is anything wrong with the wagstaff screen, he'll get suspended.

Anyone have video of tuckers wwe move on Wagstaff that also went unwhistled?

the play was ugly, NBL needs to look at it but I think the screen was fairly clean and Wagstaff should be cleared...

Ive seen the same screen a hundred times in games, this should never have been referred to the tribunal. The kid was not watching where he was going, his team didnt alert him and Wagstaff has a right to protect himself and brace before being hit.

They let so many moving screens go and when someone sets proper one he goes to tribunal. To be fair they are probably covering their arse to further problems if Barker doesn't come good.

I'm in agreement with the majority. Much as I dislike Wagstaff and his unsavoury tactics in the past, in this case I think he did nothing wrong and it was just unfortunate that it ended as badly as it did.

I agree with Dunkman - they reacted because they had to be seen to react, regardless of whether it was warranted or not. It’s more about the optics, in my view.

If there are any better Australian/Asian centres available , cats should release Majok Majok and bring one. Thomas not had a reliable start to his career here. That loss was a lot about lack of height when it mattered. Majok really more an NBL 1 level these days. Cats need to get back to their roots of having big front lines.

Loss is on Nortons turnovers, but also Rookie mistakes by rillie

Small ball with Humphries out there..

No Corey Webster last few minutes.. As defense knew that it was basically. Cotton time.. Was a big mistake

Why does rillie not have Manek in simple pick x pop situations with Manek, to create easy offense, defending team has to decide to pick there poison

Cats still lack that secondary scorer who can create his own offense.. Which will unfortunately lead to burn out of cotton as season progresses

The fact that they had to rely. On Corey so much already, is a large example of that... It's been a great pick up as its something this team desperately. Lacks

And unfortunately.. Wagstaff, blanch field, travers, Norton as good as they are as competitors, scrappers, you can't. Classify any of them as instant offense, or knock down shooters

The big man issue isn't so glaring once other import comes back

Manek, pick x pop with cotton/Webster sorry

On 2 or 3 occasions XRM was left with metres of open space to splash 3s while Norton was in the key semi help-defending the big. After how XRM has been shooting this is so unbelievably dumb. Another occasion Goulding & XRM left wide open on the sideline while Blanchfield and Norton are in the middle of the key on help defence both pointing at the 2 wide open buckets and sure enough, splash. If those plays were drawn up thats poor coaching, if not poor poor communication. Very exciting contest but leaving 3 point machines open on multiple occasions is beyond me.