Basketball On The Internet.

WHEN Adelaide gets it wrong, wow, does it ever. Then again, when Adelaide gets it right, national league basketball life can be full of optimism and bliss. In the middle of this stands a man born Christmas Day and bearing abundant gifts of wisdom. The 36ers didn't want to know. But the Lightning did. Which team would you rather be today?

In two games at the helm of Lightning's struggling WNBL program, the man who has a history of winning wherever he goes, Scott Ninnis, has gone 2-0.

And neither of these wins were pencilled in ahead of time by anyone. Win one at home in the venue where Ninnis won NBL championships as a player and as an assistant coach with the Adelaide 36ers was over a Southside Flyers team battling its own injury woes.

Adelaide lost key import playmaker Japreece Dean (broken finger) within eight minutes of tip-off but held off a Flyers team which today beat league-leading Bendigo.

Today in Sydney against a Flames team boasting playoff aspirations, Lightning was without Dean, had to weather some extraordinary hometown cooking from the officiating panel and a double-digit deficit.

Down by seven at quarter-time, 12 at halftime and still by 10 with a period to play, Adelaide suffered a further blow when Issie Bourne (13 points on 6-of-11 shooting) fouled out.

But Ninnis has experienced all this before and somehow exhorted a 34-11 final period from his charges leading to a mind-boggling 86-73 rout!

Lightning's defence was exemplary, Izzy Borlase (22 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 steals) led the attack like an Olympian should and when the game needed to be sealed, Steph Talbot (13 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists, and oops, 10 turnovers) did it with a top-of-the-key three.

Brianna Turner (15 points on 7-of-8 shooting, 14 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals, 4 blocks) finished the game showing some of the finest form she has ever produced for Adelaide.

No longer a perennial bench-warmer Brooke Basham, for the second game in succession, swished some huge baskets in her 15-point contribution and Haylee Andrews was tenacious, slick and fearless at point guard.

It is clear the "standards" Ninnis allegedly failed to meet for the 36ers are exactly the ones he has installed at the Lightning and they are flourishing already.

The club with such a rich history is very much back in the WNBL playoff hunt.

Of course, Ninnis never should have been available to coach Lightning. In an "interim" capacity he salvaged the last NBL season for Adelaide after it sacked CJ Bruton.

His reappointment to start this year was enthusiastically received and supported by Adelaide's basketball community. Here was a proven winner and one so closely associated with every success the 36ers have experienced.

A player on the pace-setting 1986 Sixers' Invincibles, he won another NBL flag with Adelaide in 1998, then was part of Phil Smyth's coaching team for championships in 1999 and 2002.

After a few years of coaches unsuited and unaware of Adelaide's unique support for its sporting teams, his reappointment by the 36ers was universally celebrated by the long-suffering but loyal 36ers' fanbase.

His absurd sacking during the preseason by a club management with no feel for or understanding of what his appointment meant to Adelaide was typical of the "new broom sweeps clean" mentality.

The 36ers supposedly needed a "name" coach, someone with an impressive resume.

Well, sorry, but his replacement Mike Wells has an impressive resume as an NBA assistant and his coaching of the Sixers whenever they have been in a crisis, has reflected exactly that. He doesn't have the answers.

He may have suggestions, as assistants are supposed to have. But he has no answers. Watching his team disintegrate in the open roof setting as South East Melbourne humiliated it, it was clear he was out of his ... let's say, out of his comfort zone.

Wells regardless may enjoy a management gold pass with the fact Dejan Vasiljevic and Sunday Dech are out injured. 36ers management will also cut him slack for the fact Montrezl Harrell and Kendric Davis were recent victims of what the NBL considers "justice".

But truth is yesterday in Melbourne we witnessed a dysfunctional team falling apart in front of our eyes and a coach powerless or clueless how to stall it.

In Sydney today we saw another coach with his team working together seamlessly, staying focused and turning adversity into its best friend.

One Adelaide got it right.