I was in the USA during the final 3 weeks of the season so my post is uneducated in the respect that I didn't see any of the final 3 games and don't know the severity of Maher/Dusty's injuries or the intensity in which we played.

From the box scores it certainly appears that the 36ers treated these games as nothing more than 'training drills'.

Very frustrating but at least we all know to bet heavily on the opposition during the final few games of next season.

I think Smyth said after the Cairns game "Its no secret the team has been winding down over the last 3 years"

Why is this so and why let it happen?

Who would seriously coach a team and say that?

What season ticket holder would be happy with that?

What Board would satisfy themselevs that the coach gave a tinkers cuss about the team?

What value is there in winding a team down?

What or who is being done to let the team step up to the plate?

He has certainly lost me...

Stephon, your first post sums up my thoughts exactly.

I would assume that the coin toss is used because either the choice is just a token decision anyway or that the two options really are inseparable.

However, the "winner" walks away thinking "Gee, I'm not better than the other guy" and the "loser" thinks "I went hard all week and it came down to a coin toss".

You'd have to question if they treated it as a training run, if they train very hard.

cause they didn't try very hard and they didn't try anything new or innovative.

I actually feel sorry for the players they must be getting all sorts of mixed messages.

yes its ok to lose some games, its ok to lose by lots, don't worry about the fans, its not if we win or not but that we don't lose by too many.

and if the team is winding down does that mean that most of this team are only fill in players whilst the club rebuilds some time in the future?

Someone made a great point to me recently. Brett Maher is nearing the end of his career. That's an opportunity to surround him with talent and go for the championship, not bum around and plan to rebuild in the future.

Stephon, welcome back from your honeymoon. Good to hear from you again. Doesn't sound like you missed much while you were away because no doubt you would have kept up to date by internet of what was happening here. We have had 2 years in a row where it seems that the last few games of the regular season were actually planned to avoid the greater of the 2 evils in the playoffs and both times went against us. It will be interesting to see what happens next year and if anything has been learnt out of this experience. As much as I think that Smyth is a great coach, if it is indeed the way he planned it, he has made 2 monumental misjudgements and hope next year he will allow the team to protect every game they play. It doesn't matter who you face in the playoffs, I just think if the team entered the playoffs with the confidence of having played the last few games well, their good form would have continued. Despite the loss to Cairns on Saturday being a heartbreaker and very difficult to swallow, the team played how they should have played in the previous 3 games. With that sort of practice in those 3 games, their performance on Saturday night may have been even stronger. If for any reason a team has not made good progress throughout the season, they concentrate their best efforts towards the end of the season as that is the time you need to be playing your best. There is strong evidence that it has happened by the fact that 3rd & 4th teams both were eliminated in 1 elimination game, yet 5th & 7th have progressed to the 3 game semi final. Despite the finals format being a joke, it is a regular pattern that lower ranked teams go further in the finals.

I think the finals system is a joke and have posted as such on many occasions since the NBL introduced the knock-out final gimmicky system.

However, the truth is that we have had home court advantage over the past two years with teams that were awesome home teams and have not been able to get things done.

Even if the finals system provided us with a best of 3 series, we would have been in serious trouble heading to Brisbane down 1 last year, or Cairns this year given our road records.

Both years share the fact that we weren't playing our best basketball at the most important time of the year.

My opinion is that trying to be too clever re play-off seeding sends the wrong message to sponsors, fans and the players a like.

Make no mistake, NBA coaches have commonly done the same thing that Smyth has done and rest players at the end of the season, and use tactics re play-off seeding to better their chances.

Difference is that they play 82 games and each series is best of 7. If Poppovic rests Duncan for 3 games, those 3 games are all in the same week so its not like Duncan is going into the finals underdone.

When Maher/Dusty doesn't play their usual role for 3 games in the NBL it has a different effect.

You want to go into the finals with the attitude and enthusiasm that we can beat anyone. Not display an attitude that indicates we fear certain teams.

Where is the enthusiasm and the attitude from Smyth's first year as coach with the 36ers where all the players shaved their heads showing they meant business?

Another problem I have with Smyth's attitude that their is no difference between 3rd and 4th is that this is not the case.

If we had finished 3rd and beat Perth, we would have played Melbourne (who we were 2-2 against during the season) as opposed to the Kings who had thumped us in all but 1 game this season.

Not only that but had we somehow beat Melbourne and say Wollongong/Cairns beat Sydney we would have been in the Grand Final with home court advantage.

You bring up some some interesting and well calculated points Stephon but where was Breheny when all this was happening. I thought he was the mathematical mastermind in making this sort of calculation. Did he not look at the whole picture from start of playoffs to end of grand final, instead just taking things one step at a time? It makes you quite angry now thinking about what might have been if they just let nature take its course instead of manipulating it.

3 seasons ago we had a 3 game series with Perth, and once again we LOST at home in game 1, went on to beat Perth at challenge stadium in game 2, (greatest comeback in NBL) and then was outed of the race in game 3. Perth went on to play the Kings in the GF that year... if only we could have won game one at home. The pattern has continued 3 seasons in a row now losing our home finals games against Perth, Bullets and now Cairns. I think Smyth should come up with a new plan of attack coming into the business end of the season. I support Smyth 100% and unless we miss the playoffs entirely, getting rid of him should be out of the question. Just a hypothetical question but who would people want to coach the Sixers if they got rid of Smyth? Goorjian :) If I was to choose another coach it would be Doc Hurley but he is retired.

I caught a little bit of Talking Hoops last night and Phil responded to this issue by suggesting that Brisbane went into their last game playing pretty much everyone (except Copeland and Rucker) even if they were carrying injuries like Black and going 100% for the win and it didn't help them in the 1st round of the playoffs.

Maybe if they'd rested some players in that game (eg Black) they would have got past the first round even if that meant playing on the road??

Personally, I'm with Stephon on this one - watching the Sixers play against Brisbane in the last game of the regular season was just plain embarrassing. But's it a difficult balance to strike. We're not a deep team and the loss of a key player like Maher or Dusty for the final against Cairns would have killed us. Why risk that? On the other hand, you want some sort of confidence going into the playoffs. It's not easy to just "turn" good form on. However, if you remember 2002 the Sixers were not playing very well at the end of that season.

Interestingly enough, Phil said that had we beaten Cairns on Sat then Maher would have been out for tonights game against the Kings and Dusty was doubtful. And we all know what happened to the Sixers the last time they played Sydney in Sydney without Maher.

On this point, Maher is having to contend with more and more injuries as he gets older and we obviously need a backup for him. I know Farley is contracted for next season so we can't bring in a point guard import but I'm wondering whether it would help Maher in the twilight of his career to play more of the 2 rather than the 1. It must take a toll on Maher having to advance the ball against almost constant pressure given that although he is a solid ball-handler he is not in the same league as CJ Bruton, Dmac or Darnell. Bringing in a competent backup point guard would hopefully reduce the minutes Maher has to play throughout the season, leading to him being more likely to be fully fit going into the playoffs. Players like Maher don't come along very often in the NBL and the Sixers should do everything they can to try and win another Championship with him still playing.

Where's Joe Morgensten in all of this conversation???

I seriously doubt that Maher or Dusty would have missed tonight's game had they won.

The excuses remind me of the loss to Cairns last year where Smyth was complaining that Ng was fouled on the last three point attempt by Melvin Thomas despite everyone NBL wide knowing that the 36ers had tanked the game.

It can easily be argued that Maher was being over-played by Smyth all season long and was being put at an increased risk of injury while one of the NBL's most talented young guards in Hill was anchored to the bench. IE if Maher had played 30mins a game instead of 40 with Hill playing 15-20 instead of 5-10 would have we been much worse off?

Similarly there was no reason why Gerlach couldn't have got a run for say 5 minutes a game to ease some of the load.

Brett Maher is the best player in the NBL in my opinion, with only Anstey and Bruton who can compare in value to their teams. We have about three years to put a decent team around him that doesn't consist of a Cooper/Rees centre rotation and yet it appears our efforts in recruiting are awful.

Not only that but we appear to be missing out on good SA junior talent like Newley, Schenscher and Ingles through lack of effort when compared with our competitors such as Townsville and Southern Dragons.

With respect to possible replacement coaches, I have a lot of time for KB, Sapwell and Richard Hill at the local level. A combination of these three who put in a lot of unpaid effort in the community to further SA basketball would be ideal. Save a lot of money also.

Out of existing NBL coaches, could do worse than a Stacker-Ninnis combo. Stacker has obviously had a poor year but he would lift the intensity, demand decent defence and is a great recruiter (see Rillie, Newley, Ingles, etc). He is also anti-Goorjian which is a positive.

I remember an interview with John Rillie after his shift to West Sydney where he down played Smyth's role in our first championship and gave a lot of credit to Dunlap for the development of Maher's, Cat's, Sapwell's, etc and his own game.

Rillie stated Smyth was brilliant in the respect that he allowed the players the freedom to play the game with confidence on the offensive side but without Dunlap's tough years of training, Rillie, Maher, Cat wouldn't have been good enough to deliver a championship.

I cast the comments off as sour grapes at the time but looking back there seems to be a lot of truth in his words.

A lot of similarities with the Detroit Pistons situation now that Flip Saunders has let off the offensive shackles Larry Brown previously applied but no question they are the team they are now because of Brown's efforts.

On the subject of change now that Panther has contributed to the discussion, the number one player the 36ers need to add to next season's team is someone off the bench with Panther's attitude.

Someone that isn't soft and is prepared to come off the bench and put some guys on the floor when going for cute lay-ups against us and someone who will not be happy going down by 43 to a Brisbane team without Rucker.

This is especially so now that Rees has retired.

No question we need some extra toughness inside.

Brett Maher is a legend but a whole team of Brett Maher good sports won't win a championship. You need the agression of players like Rees, Garrison, Sapwell, etc off the bench to win championships.

FWIW: Have a look at the MPG for all NBL players and you'll see Farley (Second, 39.7 MPG) and Maher (Fourth, 39.4 MPG) right up near the top. Bruton (34.9 MPG) and Smith (33.3 MPG) for comparison from the two Kings' stars.

Rat10,

Brisbane were playing for a home elimination final, right? Had they rested players and been surprised by Adelaide, they might've been playing interstate which could've done more against their chances than not having Black in perfect condition.

The only player they didn't "rest" was really Black and he still played 35 minutes against Perth in the elimination game. Rucker was coming out of hospital and Copeland was missing altogether - the final result (a narrow loss to Perth) was less about resting players and more to do with Rucker and Copeland IMO.

Now, I don't mind Maher being rested or Dusty playing 25 minutes (not far from his average anyway!) but you cannot tell your Hill/Gower/Hambours that the game is a training drill - it's a great opportunity for them to play their best.

Take Bruton (Maher's equivalent at Sydney) and Roberts out of Sydney and they could still be more competitive than losing by 40+ to a Brisbane team missing Rucker and Copeland! Why? They're more driven, intense and passionate.

70313 - blasé is it.

Exactly Isaac,

I wasnt pissed at the fact we 'rested' players to make sure that niggling injuries were sorted out for the finals, but at the fact that the players we did send out there didnt seem to give a stuff. And as for comments from Phil that we treat it as a training drill thats fine too - but I didnt see any specific plays being practised or any defensive sets being perfected! and 5 on 5 off subs isnt practise thats under 10's stuff!

It doesnt matter who we put on the floor - when they walk out in a Sixers uniform they should be putting in 100% effort at all times - then if they lose they can look each other in the eye and say they did their best - thats all I ask!