Basketball On The Internet.

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 MELBOURNE TIGERS

CLIPSAL POWERHOUSE, SUNDAY, JULY 4, 1993

IT was always going to be a rough ride but the Adelaide 36ers gave Mark Bradtke a hellish homecoming with a deafening and emphatic 109-94 National Basketball League victory over Melbourne.

After three quarters of the most exciting and enthralling basketball yet seen at the Clipsal Powerhouse, the 36ers left the Tigers coughing on their dust as they broke open the thriller with a 28-14 last term.

“We stood up to be counted,” Super Sixers coach Don Monson said.

They certainly did.

But so too did the fans, whose contribution Monson was quick to acknowledge.

“I thought the crowd was fantastic,” he said.

“In the past, they've tended to be involved when things are going well.

“But they were behind us all game. Maybe we need a Bradtke imitation here every week,” he quipped.

Bradtke's presence incited the 8,000-strong sell-out crowd throughout.

He was jeered remorselessly, hounded and booed from the moment his Tigers entered the arena to the moment they left with their tails tucked.

Every time he handled the ball, the unforgiving were on him, the biggest cheer coming when he shot an airball.

As he battled the odds to finish with 17 points and 14 rebounds, it was almost possible to feel sorry for him.

It was akin to the vocal and vociferous drubbing Chris Goulding copped in Game 3 of last season's semi final series against Adelaide.

But there was considerably more to Adelaide's performance than Bradtke's long-awaited return.

Monson's game strategy of a triangle-and-two defence - three players in a zone alignment and two playing man-to-man - and a more balanced offence that utilised David Robinson's inside moves, was brilliant.

Scott Ninnis on Lanard Copeland and Phil Smyth splitting time with Brett Maher on ever-dangerous Andrew Gaze, were the man-to-man assignments, and both paid handsomely.

Ninnis, in a role more akin to the defensive jobs to which he had grown accustomed with the South East Magic, held Copeland to eight points at 25 per cent - more than 10 below the American's season average.

Smyth and Maher kept Gaze 12 below his season output, and he had to work relentlessly to collect his 22 points at an embattled 33 per cent.

Ninnis, Smyth and Maher all were able to gamble because of the disciplined, committed support Mike McKay consistently offered at the point of Adelaide's defensive triangle, a factor instrumental in its success.

And that left Robinson and Mark Davis anchored close to the basket at the triangle's base.

Davis gave his finest all-round performance of the year, scoring 26 points at 54 per cent, grabbing a game high 15 boards and missing a “triple double” - double figures in points, rebounds and assists - by just one pass!

It was a captain's game of the highest calibre.

Six Sixers finished in double figures, with Robinson stamping his name on the game with a 12-point first-term barrage that formed the backbone of a 30-26 lead.

After extending that edge to 10 points at 36-26, Adelaide fell victim to a Stephen Whitehead offensive assault that sparked a 20-3 run.

Ninnis finally closed Whitehead down as Maher led an offensive revival that culminated in Jerry Dennard converting a finger-roll on the half-time siren, Adelaide down 51-52.

Dennard made the most of his two minutes of court-time, also drawing a charge out of Bradtke which had the faithful in full voice.

“I've always felt Melbourne come out really tough in the third quarter so I tried to stress that at half-time,” Monson said.

Adelaide sustained the pressure to go into the last break ahead 81-80, then broke open the game with its defence, Ninnis and Robinson slamming big dunks, Davis driving the lane and Smyth burying two 3-pointers with an endless roar of approval ringing in their ears.