Basketball On The Internet.

THERE definitely are rounds when it is very difficult to select the NBL Team of the Week and Round 4 is no exception. We had three outstanding candidates in the Adelaide 36ers, South East Melbourne Phoenix and Tasmania JackJumpers in another series where home-court advantage didn't stand for much at all.

The pressure surely eased on Phoenix coach Simon Mitchell as returning import playmaker Gary Browne made an immediate impact. SEM ran up a club record 38-point first quarter against New Zealand in Auckland, led from go-to-whoa and belted the in-form Breakers 99-77.

And that was after losing to them a week earlier in Melbourne!

With their backs to the wall, the Brisbane Bullets attacked the Phoenix to seize an 11-point buffer in South East's second game of the round.

But Mitch Creek led a super resurgence that finished in a thrilling victory for SEM and kept the Bullets without a win, Browne again a catalyst.

There was much talk and banter from Sydney before the champs hosted Adelaide, only to see the 36ers win their opening road game of the season 92-88.

Like the old saying goes: talk is cheap and after the 36ers shot out of the blocks, they then weathered Sydney's assault and iced an impressive road success.

Tasmania hosted the perennial powerhouse Perth in Hobart after a week of turmoil for the Wildcats, fighting - and ultimately beating - the NBL Games Review Panel's absurd suspension of Jesse Wagstaff for a legal screen.

When the "unduly rough play" charge eventually was dismissed by a single-member tribunal, Perth - and every fan of true basketball - breathed a sigh of relief.

The Wildcats were looking good too, leading 23-22 after the first quarter. But little did they know what was to come as the JackJumpers unleashed their full fury to record a monster 103-72 rout.

It was Tassie's highest score and greatest winning margin, coach Scott Roth - arguably the No.1 coach in the league again this year - drawing the best from all of his charges and unafraid to trust each one.

Jack McVeigh led the way with 17 points, Rashard Kelly 16, Milton Doyle 15, Matt Kenyon a career-high 14, Josh Magette with 11 and an NBL career-best 10 assists.

Defensively, "the Green" were super mean, hustling and playing their hearts out, Roth getting 13 players into the massacre and 12 of them scoring!

And it was against Perth, the club many - if not most - had very high in championship contention.

Truly, for non-club-committed observers, Tasmania is the #1 fun team to watch, with Cairns and New Zealand also in the entertainment business.

And it is without further ado we can reveal the JackJumpers are Round 4's NBL Team of the Week. And deservedly so.

History also has been made with not one but TWO clubs vying and tying for the round's Team of the Weak As P!$$ award - hotshot teams Melbourne United and Perth Wildcats.

United blew its home game against Cairns, then squandered a hard-fought lead and again capitulated against Sydney - in Melbourne. Those efforts rhyme with "peace corps".

But worse, in the loss to Cairns, at one point Melbourne's Chris Goulding claimed an opponent had shoved a finger up his butt - a claim he then recanted! WTH?

And throughout his press conference after the Sydney loss, United coach Dean Vickerman threw import Jordan Caroline under the bus in an unusually classless blame-game extravaganza.

Caroline, he said, is only still on the roster because United have yet to find a replacement for him, comparing him less-than favourably to lost forward Jack White (Denver Nuggets)! Nice going. Give us your best effort next game though please JC.

"As I've been open about, we're searching for a guy, we haven't found the right guy yet," Vickerman said. "I thought the shots JC had tonight, we were talking in the locker room and it was like 'wow, if Jack White had every one of those catches where he caught it, and those takes at the rim, and just were able to finish it, there were 11 kind of good shots', but he just hasn't been able to finish some of those over the length of people in this league."

While on the other hand lauding Vickerman's honesty, the point should also be made that Caroline is playing out of position.

Perth joins Melbourne on the Team of the Weak As P!$$ scale for its abject catastrophic effort after quarter-time in Hobart. We've just come to expect more and that performance was one that temporarily should rename their fan base the Red-Faced Army.

Yep, they're a work-in-progress with a rookie coach but effort only takes, well, effort.

BASKETBALL ON THE INTERNET TEAM OF THE WEEK
Round 4 Tasmania JackJumpers
Round 3 Cairns Taipans
Round 2 Sydney Kings
Round 1 Cairns Taipans

BASKETBALL ON THE INTERNET TEAM OF THE WEAK AS P!$$
Round 4 Perth Wildcats | Melbourne United
Round 3 NBL Games Review Panel
Round 2 South East Melbourne Phoenix
Round 1 Not awarded