Basketball On The Internet.

THE shock news out of NBL Round 19 is less the games (covered here in our Review Part 2) but Perth's loss of superstar Bryce Cotton for the rest of the regular season and Melbourne's latest COVID outbreak.

The Wildcats released a statement which read: "Perth Wildcats guard Bryce Cotton has been ruled out for the remainder of the regular season after suffering a hematoma to his left quadriceps.

"The injury is unrelated to the groin soreness which ruled him out of Sunday’s game in Adelaide."

In other words, don't let's confuse his injury with anything which may have resulted from Cotton almost doing the splits when slipping on the totally unnecessary decal of the NBL logo in Perth's road loss in Brisbane.

The fact the league's dual-MVP required some corrective surgery would be of huge private concern for the Wildcats who now look assured of a second place finish and a semi final showdown against the emerging South East Melbourne Phoenix.

Melbourne United, now firmed as the likely regular season champs, will have life much easier in the other semi final series against whichever of Illawarra or Sydney stumbles into the Final Four.

But life now also has taken something of a turn for United and Phoenix with a COVID outbreak in Melbourne forcing both teams to relocate to Queensland.

United will remain in Brisbane until the team departs for its game against the Sydney Kings at Qudos Bank Arena this Saturday.

Phoenix is en route to Cairns as the League continues to monitor the COVID situation developing in Melbourne. Depending on how the situation develops over the next 24 hours, the game between South East Melbourne and Cairns scheduled this Saturday may yet have to be moved.

The same may apply for the game between Melbourne and Cairns currently scheduled to be played in Melbourne next Monday May 31. Stay tuned, this latest situation possibly also about to impact other Melbourne-based basketball events such as the Junior Classics and Nunawading tournaments.

 

 

 

  ROUND 19 (Part 2) - GAME BY GAME

 

 

OPENING with a 31-point first quarter, South East Melbourne left no doubt about its intentions in Brisbane against a home team which, we've said it here all season, simply cannot be trusted.

The Bullets hung tough to make a first-half of it but even that proved too difficult after the interval as the team collectively raised the white flag of surrender to disappear without trace.

To put it bluntly, the Bullets were an on-court embarrassment as they capitulated - and not for the first time this season - with barely a whimper. Nathan Sobey celebrated his overdue addition to the Boomers' Olympic squad with four points on 1-of-7 shooting.

Collectively the Bullets mustered 24 points in the second half. The Phoenix had 26 in the third period, 26 to 10, actually. Their lead ballooned out as far as 35 points and this, against a team allegedly trying to make the Final Four and playing at home!

Any resemblance between these Bullets and the team which beat Perth earlier was purely coincidental. But to be-labour Brisbane's woeful and pathetic performance any further can only diminish what South East achieved.

The Phoenix were phabulous, Yanni Wetzell dominant but Reuben Te Rangi, Mitch Creek and the floor general Keifer Sykes marshalling a tremendous all-around game from the entire lineup.

Simon Mitchell rotated his men well and they left no doubt they are the only genuine threat to Melbourne or Perth for the NBL 2021 championship.

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 95 (Wetzell 18, Adnam 16, Te Rangi, Creek 12, Sykes 10; Wetzell 9 rebs; Sykes 7 assts) d BRISBANE BULLETS 66 (Drmic 20, Patterson 11, 3 with 6; Harrison 8 rebs; Sobey 7 assts) at The Armoury, Nissan Arena. Crowd: 2,533

* * * 

PERTH sauntered into Adelaide with no great alarm, even though it had lost to the 36ers this season and was hitting the city of lurches without main man Bryce Cotton.

(Later, when the extent of his quad injury became known, it seemed less as if the Wildcats had little more than contempt for the Sixers, even in their own living room, than it originally appeared.)

For as much as it could, Adelaide competed but Perth needed someone to fill the breach Cotton left and Mitch Norton was more than happy to oblige.

His game-high 19 points meant he led the Wildcats' in scoring for the first time in 94 appearances in the red, both he and Luke Travers making big plays to hold Adelaide at bay.

The 36ers weren't helped by leaving Brendan Teys anchored to the bench, Teysy repeatedly showing he would bleed for this team.

Who do you want out there battling for you in your last home game? A guy who will dive on any loose ball or an import who is jogging back debating a non-call with a ref while his team is outnumbered down the other end?

That shouldn't be too hard for Conner Henry and certainly not as difficult as trying to follow his player rotations.

The only concern for the Wildcats was that of the 11 players who contributed to Adelaide's 20th loss of the season, 10 scored, the only player without a point being Will Magnay.

PERTH WILDCATS 76 (Norton 19, Mooney 15, Blanchfield 14, Steindl 11; Mooney 12 rebs; Mooney 5 assts) d ADELAIDE 36ERS 68 (Johnson 13, Crocker 12, Dillon 11, McVeigh, Paul 10; Paul 11 rebs; Dillon, Crocker 5 assts) at Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Crowd: 6,422

* * * 

SOMETIMES you have to win ugly. Sometimes you have to lose ugly. And sometimes, like this game, it's just perpetually ugly.

Sure, Justinian Jessup looked sharp early for Illawarra in another game where Cairns was able to show its best in the first quarter.

When the Taipans continued that performance into the second quarter to actually lead 53-48 at halftime - and only a pair of Tim Coenraad vintage threes kept it from being worse - suddenly the alarm bells were ringing in Wollongong.

Tightening their defence markedly and aided by a Taipans offence which deteriorated in its decision-making and discipline, Illawarra held Cairns to six points in the third period.

Six.

Even Aaron Fearne thought that wasn't enough.

The 21-6 quarter could have been worse but somewhere the Hawks got it into their heads that heaving 3-point attempts was a better plan than running offence. And you know, if they were making them, maybe.

But Illawarra only hit 12-of-45, that's 26 per cent and truly no reason to run offence like a social team where no-one wants to go fight for a rebound.

The Hawks took 82 shots on the night so for 45 of them to be threes - an NBL record for attempts, if not futility - bordered on suicidal.

Time after time they came down the floor and jacked up a long-range misguided missile and it is a testament to how badly Cairns has disintegrated as an NBL team that it could not take advantage of such relentless wayward, careless offence.

The final siren on this one was a blessing and a relief.

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 93 (Jessup 24, Harvey 22, Froling 15, Deng 13, Ogilvy 11; Ogilvy 12 rebs; Harvey 9 assts) d CAIRNS TAIPANS 81 (Machado 17, Deng 16, King 12, Djeric 11; 3 with 4; Machado 9 assts) at The Sandpit, WIN Entertainment Centre. Crowd: 2,258

* * * 

OH please don't let the final 11-point margin fool you into thinking Brisbane was ever truly in this game against Melbourne.

Don't go home from a party or something and see the result and suspect the Bullets went down fighting They just went down. Again. As usual. Offering next to nothing. So no, don't watch the game if you recorded it. Free up space and delete it now.

That is, of course, unless you want to see Chris Goulding collating 22 points and sticking six 3-pointers. Or marvel as United's bench shows it can go with the best Brisbane has to offer.

OK. That surely wasn't the best Brisbane has to offer but it appears the sooner this season concludes, the better for these fraudsters masquerading as finals contenders.

Again, if you want to see Anthony Drmic go 0-of-7 or Harry Froling taking threes, Tamuri Wigness playing four minutes and the Bullets trailing by as many as 21 points, then by all means fire up the replay and settle back.

If not, try and find the Illawarra-Cairns TV replay. After watching that, this one won't seem quite as dreadful.

MELBOURNE UNITED 99 (Goulding 22, Lual-Acuil 18, Ili 10; Peatling, McCarron 6 rebs; McCarron 7 assts) d BRISBANE BULLETS 88 (Sobey 20, Patterson 19, Froling 12; Hodgson 9 rebs; Cadee 5 assts) at The Armoury, Nissan Arena. Crowd: 1,614

* * * 

CANNOT help wondering where New Zealand may have finished this COVID-afflicted NBL season if it had Levi Randolph from Day One and steered relatively clear of the injury rush which cruelled its year.

Add home games to that list and we definitely would have had a Final Four contender, not another untrustworthy pretender such as its victim tonight in Christchurch, Adelaide.

With its imports now playing as though they do not expect to be back and the Josh Giddey experience at an end, all that remains for these 36ers is the conclusion of Brendan Teys' time at the club, the probable loss of Jack McVeigh to a program which better will appreciate and utilise his talents and effort, and yet another rebuild around old reliable Daniel Johnson.

Dan Dillon isn't going out without a fight, as his equal game-high 22 points at 75 per cent, six assists, no turnovers and one steal reflected.

But the life and spirit has been drained from this motley crew, compounded by a season-long erratic substitution pattern and scant regard for consistent defensive pressure, Sunday Dech exempted.

The Breakers, on the other hand, not unexpectedly are coming home with a wet sail, their 29-18 second period underpinning a relatively comfortable victory.

William McDowell-White has compiled an excellent season, Finn  Delany - albeit a bit down the past few outings - has had an All-Star calibre year and a full line-up may have kept the Webster brothers from going off on their own tangents as often as they did.

Now imagine if Tom Abercrombie (hamstring) also was playing and you can see why NZ fans rightly are lamenting what might have been in 2021.

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 94 (C.Webster 22, Randolph 17, Iverson, Delany 14; Iverson 8 rebs; McDowell-White 9 assts) d ADELAIDE 36ERS 76 (Dillon 22, Johnson 18, McVeigh 13; Pinder, Paul 7 rebs; Dillon 6 assts) in Christchurch . Crowd: 2,803

* * * 

ROUND 19 (What else we learnt)

*Against the Phoenix, it appeared as if the entire Bullets team bailed, following in the footsteps of coach Andrej Lemanis who apparently ejected weeks ago; 

*SEM's Mike Karena is the NBL equivalent of the human victory cigar;

*Thank Naismith there's a mute button on the TV remote whenever the "entertainers" on the microphone decide to wax lyrical about their All-Star Five picks or should there be an All Defensive Team blah blah blah bull$#!+. No-one cares fellas. Take a leaf from the playbook of NZ's Andrew Mulligan and Casey Frank and try calling the game being played in front of you;

*And shut the hell up now and again;

*Never before seen a Brian Goorjian-coached team showing such a distinct lack of offensive discipline as his Illawarra Hawks against Cairns. If defence wasn't his staple, that result easily could have gone pear-shaped;

*Speaking of Lamar Patterson, he obviously feels much more at home in Brisbane than he did with the Breakers, even though he's now on a roster which has no heart;

*Chris Goulding still has hops as he showed with a one-handed throwdown against Brisbane and a jogging disinterested Matt Hodgson;

*Happy to see life for the Breakers take a huge upturn with home games all around New Zealand and fans showing the love; 

*Wouldn't it be ironic if Melbourne and South East Melbourne, who have enjoyed so many games at home this year, finished up having to play all their finals matches interstate?

QUOTE of the WEEK

"We reward excellence here in New Zealand."

NZ TV caller Casey Frank explaining why there are no free Hungry Jack's cheeseburgers given away when an opponent misses two free throws (as occurs in Australia), a free feed coming instead whenever the Breakers shoot more than 90 points. Makes so much more sense as to be embarrassing for the NBL, HJs and all of us who love the promotion. Yep. Reward excellence, not futility. Nice one Case.

TOMORROW: Team of the Week