The most interesting match of the round for most observers I'm sure (other than their own teams).


Kings easily is my tip. Just like the pre-season and their roster would suggest.

It would be a very Sydney Kings thing to do to somehow lose this, I don't think they will though. Kings by 17

I don't think Goorj is quite what he used to be.

But he won't need to be Scott Roth to lead the Kings to success this season. He just needs to manage the personalities and role expectations, and do a competent job of the X's and O's.

Kings got this, the question is how good the Sixers perform, a Honourable loss would be a good start as kings should not lose to many. An upset win would really set Sixers up for a good season.

Everyone has been talking about Alex Toohey...
Keen to see how Kendric Davis responds to Well's very public outburst regarding his "back turning" to the ball in transition D,
but also how the 36ers handle the Kings game pace generally.
If the 36ers have to use much of their bench because the Kings are drawing fouls or just their game pace, then the 36ers are in big trouble.

Sydney by 25

That's something to watch for sure

Cooks is great at drawing fouls. New import bigs often struggle to adjust. If I'm Goorj, I'm calling plays for Cooks early to put Harrell under pressure.

Kings by 20

Show us the 36ers time out!

Was it 20 at the quarter, if so it's looking possible

What incredible resilience by Adelaide

Wow what a crazy quarter. Jason Cadee absolutely hooping

Goorjian takes his foot off the throat with his rotations and lets Adelaide back into the game, they took full advantage. No reason to sit Adams after 4 mins when the 36ers can't guard the ball-screen.

Incredible fight back, credit to Cadee for steading the ship, let Martin go, Harrell been magnificent doing the blue collar stuff. Can commentary stop calling Cooks MVP, Cotton is the mvp.

Mayen hit two big threes in that first quarter, 8 pts in total, showed no nerves with Kings rolling and started to swing the momentum.

Getting ugly again. 36ers not able to get any sort of consistent momentum going.

Yet again the Sixers look dead and buried, and start to come back

I love this Harrell, he's my sort player, team first.

So far, Sydney's starters much better than Adelaide's. The Sixers' bench much better than the Kings.

Its a fun watch

Too much lineup shuffling from the Kings. Agree with Copes, that's Gorj's biggest difficulty this year - getting guys burn.

Davis struggling with attention from Kuol and L'Afa but otherwise some good signs for 36ers

Yep, Sixers bench been superb, which is surprising. Mayern has been good as well, Davis has five assists, done ok, need humphries to fire up. Harrell amazing.

Leafa minus 21, Kuol plus 24, a couple dumb fouls, Cooks, 5-5 free throws. Kings biggest problem will be keeping all players happy, I'm not certain how they stay under the cap.

I'm courtside at the game. Harrell getting frustrated at some of his team mates not being in the right position for some of the plays.

Sunday playing well, this coach doing a fine job. Refs slightly favouring kings

Goorj is a legend.

But just like the WC/Olympics it's like he has no feel when to call timeouts to stop momentum.

Don't engage with the crowd, oh my, what stupidity

What the fuck! Tech foul for engaging with the crowd...….in a positive way?

Agree.
That was so cringe.
Ref needs a reality check real quick.
How embarrassing

It's so weird to see a coach make adjustments lol

Also Harrell is too good for this league, should win MVP easily

Huge 10 mins coming up. Dunno what would be a bigger story- Kings losing or Sixers winning

Been really impressed with Lat Mayden so far

Leaupepe could end up being a liability for kings with the way he plays gives away bad fouls and takes poor shots!

Wait till Harrell gets match fit, has been out long term due to injury.

Leaupepe could end up being a liability for kings with the way he plays gives away bad fouls and takes poor shots!

Time for Oliver to step up here

What on earth was that ref on about. Harrell was just pumping up the crowd. Embarrassing for the NBL refereeing department to say the least.

Humphries really struggling, wonder if the Kings front-courts is the hardest matchup for him in the league.

Mayen looking awesome

Come on Sixers

Refs admitted they made a mistake with the crowd engagement T

Either way this game goes i think the sixers will take a lot of positive from it.

Another wasted year.

Just sell the team

20 offensive boards to the Kings, that was the difference tonight

Cooks is a monster on both ends. Still an embarrassment he wasn't on the Olympic team.

Sixers way more talent, have the two best players on the court.

But nah still loss because like every Adelaide mens sports teams, Adelaide just have garbage professional sports teams.

Very impressive games from Mayen and Harrell. Happy to escape with the sun, and that Gorj stuck with the closing lineup for a solid chunk of time.

Giving up 20 'O' bds will always make it hard to win.
If Humphries saw the ball, that would've gone a long way to getting him going and would've probably got the win.

Sixers showing a lot kings just so deep. Toohey, Kuol, Cooks, Adams very good for the kings. Hopefully Sixers go on with it rest season, a reasonable loss, not many sides will push the kings. Harrell excellent, Marshall, Davis, Mayern, DJV, Dech and Cadee showing that they could be in play offs if they keep performing.

Was impressed with the way toohey stood up at the end with some big plays.

Sydney need to wrap up Noi, Maluach and one of Bruce or Leafa. Galloway deserves to play and right now is pissed. Can't play everyone Goorj and expect a happy team. Doesn't work, never has and never will.

Great effort by Adelaide. Wells has them believing because they could have crumbled a few times.

Imagine swapping a fit Martin for one of the DNP locals. Make that happen if Trez will stay

Mayen impressive

If 36ers really are the spending Kings per Bogut, they'll open the chequebook, pay the luxury tax and keep Harrell and Martin (assuming no NBA team comes calling).

Cos Harrell was better than advertised. Or, better than I expected

Can't win if giving up so many offensive boards. Humphries does himself no favours, his finishing is horrible. Missing simple layups, has no left hand, out rebounded by smaller players. Davis is going to have to learn to deal with close attention. Stats have Kings putting up 44 3pt attempts. Is that right? Sixers had Kings under pump in 4th playing faster with lots of off ball movement creating open looks. Then took Humphries off for Harrell and went to a slow half court game.

LV, don't pay too much attention to Bogut he knows the Kings are the biggest spenders. They just signed Cooks to the biggest contract in NBL history, eclipsing his own deal with the Kings lol

This 36ers roster would be on around 50-60% of that Kings roster they're just flat out loaded with stars.

I agree Humphries doesn't help himself misses too much around the rim and seems to crack the sulks too often. His rebounding and shot blocking have gone out the window since that great start to the 20/21 season, I don't think we'll ever see that Humphries again.

Was good to see Harrell crash the boards, that was what I was most worried about that he wouldn't want to do the dirty work so that was good to see. Offensively a bit limited but if we get say 13 & 8 out of him until Martin comes back I would be happy with that.

Overall nice to see us come back from a couple of big deficits and make a bit of a game of it but hopefully not a regular occurrence. Davis will be much better for that game.

Bogut saying the 36ers are big spenders seems to be his go-to insult to the 36ers. Not worth paying attention to.

It's just lame from Bogut because as a part-owner of the Kings he knows how much more they're really spending outside of the cap. Cooks is on 1.2M a year but when marqueed only counts as what 150-200k against the cap, turn it up.

A team like Sydney love to produce salaries that show they're not the highest spending team but we all know that players in the big market cities get other financial incentives and opportunities which make it more attractive for players to go to these teams, just like the AFL.

Very entertaining game. Great to see the 36'ers continuing to fight back despite a poor start.

36er's looked much better with Harrell at the 5, he's just too big and strong. Humphries if he starts slowly seems to find it hard to get into the game.

The depth for the Kings is almost embarrassing.

To be fair to Cooks, he made 6 from 6 free throws and 1 from 2 threes, I'll admit he was very good but Harrell had his measure at times when they opposed each other.

Which other club could chase Harrell now when Martin comes back. Now that could bring some clubs right into calculation, united for certain.

Kuol's +39 the highest for a Kings player since the stat has been kept (2017).

36'ers would be crazy on that performance to not extend Harrell. In terms of suitors if he did leave there definitely would be many, not sure he's fit at United though as White plays that "uptempo aggressive PF" role. If they dropped Lee then potentially. United are missing a scoring SF import.

Interesting DJ's refusal to go to the bench - wonder how that would be taken by a Roth/Vickerman? It was probably the right decision as he'd just hit a three, however not a good look for the coach.

And the corresponding -31 for L'Afa. Damn

Not a great situation for Jalloway's future development at the Kings with their amount of talent and depth. Unless Pepe falls out of favour so that Toohey ends up being used at the 4 at times.

Was he obligated to return to the Kings? He would have slipped into a starters role at a few other teams.

He was I think he still had a couple of years left on his contract with them when he signed with the Bucks. He's got a fresh 3 year deal now.

It was interesting that Weston was sitting no where near GK.

Harrell's been pretty open that he sees this as his path back to the NBA and I'm guessing the short term nature of the deal with Adelaide is what convinced him to come. He'll play 8 weeks, so NBA teams see he's fit, doesn't have knee issues and is a team player and head back to the US hoping to get a deal.

If he's willing to play for min chips for half a year there would definitely be contenders interested in him, especially since he's shown he can have a big impact off the bench.

Adelaide were far better than I expected although it was a game where DJV and cadee played well which considering their inconsistency is likely to happen once or twice again this season

Humphries was terrible!! Otherwise a great game.

Zodiac, they were sitting next to each other weren't they? The whole game.

Humphries just had a bad game, he'll be right. As many have noticed, gets too down on himself. Sometimes you're a victim of circumstances, so if Harrell and Martin are working well together, there might be times where Humphries spends more time on the bench. But, he was his usual self most of the pre-season, so can't be overly harsh after one bad game.

Tough initation for all coaches and players new to the league, but lots to like.

Harrell just gives us more rebounding toughness and we really need it.

If Adelaide do keep Trez longer, would most agree it has to be Rigoni who makes way despite the SA link? Starling at least offers some gritty defence and rebounding.

I have to say Copes is growing on me as a commentator. Adds some good insight every now and again. His comments re: needing to get Humphries involved offensively early to get him in the game was absolutely spot on.

Also liked his response to Rucker re: asking not to be taken out of the game by Lindsay Gaze back in his playing days...

Master Chief, not what I saw I never saw Weston anywhere near him. Just would've thought an owner and GM would be sitting close to each other especially at an away game.

Weston was 2 or 3 seats away from GK

Looked more like 7-8 seats away to me. GK was sitting behind the coaches, as he does at home, the times I saw Weston he was sitting either at the other end of the bench or the row behind.

Quite possible he was moving around throughout the game and I happened to miss the times he was sitting near GK. I wouldn't have mentioned it if I had seen otherwise.

The Sixers can't let quality performance stop, they must go on with it a get wins against lesser sides than kings. I thought the coach did fine, I liked Davis performance as well.

7 or 8? 2 or 3? I thought they were next to each other? lol

Logged on to hoops this morning hoping to find out how close Matt Weston and Grant Kelly were sitting to eachother.

Imagine my bitter disappointment that a precise answer wasn't available

JT, I think the point was about speculation surrounding the relationship between the two, not the exact distance for no reason.

Good behind the scenes video from this game

https://youtu.be/NGqo9CovXLE?si=-Xv0JMVTjNWFVA5G

It was interesting to see how much chatter goes on we don't hear either at the games or watching the broadcast.

My observations are that Trez has to be careful not to rub people the wrong way. You could tell he intimidated Lat Mayen after there was that mistake throwing the ball out. I think he would be an intimidating team mate to have, and make people go into their shell a bit. Don't know. He was addressing the team at half time and then at the end of the game when DJ is actually the captain. I am sure he means well, and offers lots of experience, but I just hope he doesn't walk all over people.

Wells seems like an unpredictbale personality. Obviously a nice, personable guy, but the way he looked and spoke to Cooks to then just proceed to claim to be joking, might indicate he can lose his cool a bit and snap. Obviously, we've already seen this.

Just observations, and am always happy to be wrong.

Yeah I agree. Personally I would've loved it as a player because he practices what he preaches and he plays his ass off but demanding people to lift doesn’t always work. I think especially Humphries is likely to suffer with that because he does seem like a huge confidence player that doesn’t thrive off of coach/player aggression towards him. Couple that with Trezz and him playing somewhat similar positions I think it may cause Ice to go into his shell big time.

I imagine ther will be an adjustment period for Harrell in terms of the quality he's playing with now. Not to sound disrespectful of the guys on the team, but to go from playing with guys like LBJ, PG and Kawhi Leonard to playing with guys at the level here may have some initial frustrations.

It's easy for stuff to look good in practice, but once you get into the heat of a game, that's where the real stuff starts. Not a problem yet, but Harrell will need to make sure he doesn't become frustrated and lash out over mistakes or a lower level of play he's probably not used to seeing.

Was interesting to see Harrell voice the same frustrations that caused Wells to blow up in training, that looks like something they'll need to keep on top of through the year.