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WAYBACK Wednesday was a weekly feature I wrote last season for Adelaide 36ers website, which now you can revisit, see for the first time or completely ignore!

ADELAIDE 36ERS V BRISBANE BULLETS

CLIPSAL POWERHOUSE, OCTOBER 2, 1994

ADELAIDE 36ers coach Mike Dunlap had to roll the dice.

The best-of-3 quarter-final series with Brisbane was locked at 1-1 with Shane Heal and Leroy Loggins both boasting the potential to KO the Sixers from the playoff race.

The first game in Brisbane saw Adelaide leading 99-92 with 93 seconds left after Robert Rose converted two free throws.

But there was Leapin’ Leroy, sinking a three with 75 seconds left.

En route to 34 points, Rose drove and scored again to push the lead back to 101-95 with 50 clicks remaining. That was when Heal struck.

Coming off a career-best 61-point game to close the regular season against Townsville, he was still riding that high when he swished a three with 35 seconds to play.

Double-teamed and trapped in the corner on the inbounds pass, Phil Smyth threw the ball out of court off a Brisbane defender’s legs.

A “heads up” play, the refs instead said he had missed and returned the ball to the Bullets.

Brisbane coach Bruce Palmer took timeout and everyone knew either Loggins or Heal would be the last play’s architect.

It was Heal who stuck the game-tying three to send the game into overtime 101-101 and from there, the Bullets won, Heal with 42 points, Loggins 30.

In a gripping Game 2, Adelaide levelled the series and Game 3 had all the earmarks of a classic.

It didn’t disappoint.

Dunlap gambled several times but kept rolling out winners as his charges sent Brisbane into mothballs with an emphatic 101-84 victory.

His decision-making eventually led to a frustrated Heal cementing his “Public Enemy #1” status in Adelaide by flipping fans the bird late in the contest.

American coach Dunlap, in his first (and best) year as Sixers' coach, masterminded a brilliant game-plan which his totally committed players executed to perfection and with relentless desire and intensity.

In Game 2, he gambled and won by reinstating out-of-touch Mike McKay into the starting line-up for the series' pivotal game, an eventual 99-91 victory.

In Game 3 he started Robert Rose on Dave Colbert instead of on Leroy, and shifted Chris Blakemore onto Brisbane's triple-league MVP.

Colbert, who burnt Adelaide by scoring five 3-pointers from just seven attempts in Game 2, did not hit a shot from beyond the arc.

And Loggins, who followed his winning 30-point Game 1 performance with a 29-point Game 2 haul, managed just 15 points and went scoreless through a third term in which the 36ers seized control.

If those moves weren't courageous enough, Dunlap also threw wiry 206cm centre Brett Wheeler - who saw no action in Game 1 - into the fray after just seven minutes ... and on to Loggins!

In another strategic ploy, Dunlap started the last quarter with Blakemore defending Heal.

Heal, who steadily had been reduced to a frustrated bystander by the remorseless defensive pressure Brett Maher was applying, now had a Mack-truck running him down whenever he could find space.

And that wasn't nearly so often as in Game 1, with Andre Moore, Colbert and Robert Sibley less inclined to set serious screens for him with Blakemore bearing down on them at full throttle.

Bullets coach Palmer made his adjustments too, replacing guard Rodger Smith in his opening line-up with 202cm Seoul Olympic forward Sibley.

His plan to have Sibley dogging Rose meant Heal picked up McKay. But when McKay drained two three-pointers in the first two minutes, it was Palmer who had to abandon Plan A.

Through the sideline chess game which saw Adelaide introduce eight players and Brisbane nine into the game in just the first quarter, one player stood out ... again.

Sixers' skipper Mark Davis, whose 37 points and 13 boards dominated Game 2, scored 26 and monstered a series-high 18 rebounds.

Davis was simply outstanding, returning to the player of his youth – a multi-dimensional shake-and-baker who also played serious defence - without sacrificing the skill and power which set him on a pedestal as the NBL's longest-serving import.

Adelaide was out by eight points at the first break before being held without a field goal for almost five minutes as Brisbane closed to one.

Scott Ninnis then swished a three-pointer to restart the engines and Smyth followed with his own three. A slick Andrew Svaldenis pass to Davis had the Sixers again pulling away before the Bullets rallied to be within five at the interval.

They had it back to three before the Sixers' double and triple-defensive teaming and superlative hustle created uncertainty, confusion and apprehension, Rose always a presence and a factor.

Adelaide kept Brisbane to 17 third-quarter points, the lowest single term return by either side in the three-game series and the foundation on which victory was built.

“I was going strengths against weaknesses, instead of strengths against strengths as we had done in the first two games,” Dunlap opined.

“We believed conditioning would become a factor and were confident our fitness level was higher.”

So it proved.

Adelaide also showed great faith and poise while Palmer's frustrations boiled over when he kicked a ball for a technical foul and Heal brought more derision on himself by giving up a cheap-shot foul against Smyth and giving the crowd the one-finger salute after a basket.

In that moment, a lifelong love-hate affair with Adelaide was born.