Hopefully a good game, pity Maher is out, but would like to see Davidson light up the scoring category this week.

Hopefully Motts doesn't have to play against the refs as well.

Isaac, do you know if it is being streamed?

Live radio via 891 and stats on the NBL site as usual I guess?

hey guys..cant find at 891...anywhere else have alive feed?

http://www.abc.net.au/backyard/audio/

Just click on "891 ABC Adelaide" link, using either Real Player or Windows Media Player. I'm listening online now so it's not a dead link.

Hope that helps you out!!

Save the following link and open with Windows Media Player.
ABC Radio

thanks pie and DJ...now i wish i didnt hear it SH*T!!!

Dench - absolutely useless (go home pal)
Chappell - Pathetic after the first few minutes (and this is an import!)
Copeland - He can't help it, he is too old and seems to have lost his ability to think
Sutton - time to face the fact that the lad cannot play, let Burdon have his minutes, it cannot be any worse
Ng - pity he didn't cramp up today
Cooper - full marks to Coops, his performance was most creditable
Ballinger - cannot criticise this guy, always gives 100%
Davidson - this guy is such an inspiration, pity he has nobody to inspire on the court!

This was a boring display by a very ordinary side.

Well that was pathetic. Adelaide jumped to an early lead behind some welcome aggressiveness from Chappell. From the 2nd quarter on though, there was no rhythm to the offense at all. Ballinger had 42 last week, so of course at halftime he had taken only 4 shots. Cooper was a standout all game, Davidson as always battled hard and busted his ass on every play, and Ballinger had a strong second half to finish with 21 points and 8 boards. Erik Burdon's appearance was about the only thing to give Sixers fans anything to cheer about in a dead boring game. Defensively, we were pretty good, and kept Homicide Williams in check. But we had no answer for Michael Cedar, whose 17 first half points were the difference. Perhaps if the coaching staff had even bothered to find out who he is and what his strengths are, then he wouldn't have been draining threes and throwing down dunks all over us. But clearly, like the Nathan Herbert example earlier in the season, we don't scout.

Ng was hopeless, by my count about 2 for 10, and I spent most of the game wishing he had cramped THIS week. Copeland went 1 for 9, and looked every bit his 42 years. Chappell dissappeared (again) after a promising start. Mottram was useless, and Dench provided 6 futile minutes in the first half and looks completely and utterly lost out on court. He's gotten so bad that Smyth is using Chappell to spell Ballinger at the 4. Good on Matt Sutton for growing that moe in support of Moe-vember, excellent stuff. But can I ask with the festive season approaching, maybe in December he could GROW A JUMPSHOT!?!

Smyth again spent way too much time abusing the refs. The crew of Hunt, Haines and Filmer in my opinion had the best game of any crew at the Dome this year, with the exception of one shocking goaltend call by Filmer (you get to get a call wrong, but you don't get to get a RULE wrong). On the hole though, the officiating was excellent, and if anything favored Adelaide. So Smyth should sit down and shut up. Also, in the last 2 minutes with the game gone, Smyth put Copeland, the ice cold, really old Copeland back in instead of Burdon, who looked extremely comfortable on court in his 6-8 minutes. Similarly, Dodman was again left to rot on the bench.

A really poor showing to end a promising three game winning streak.

Cooper got some great tipins! Dench... forget him.
Sutton, not his best game, Ballinger wasn't dominant but still managed to get 21 pts, Mottram played took 4 charges! Ng played alright, hit a few jumpshots. Davidson played a great game as always, hardwork showed. Chappell, good driving early, didn't do much else. Copeland didn't get many shots up.

Adelaide missed many of there shots, i hear that the rings are utter $%^@, get new ones.

totally agree and then we had to endure foul time for the last 4 minutes and who do they foul rillie - party time for JR - whats wrong some good old full court pressure - turn the ball over and score - but no slap and foul - get then in the bonus seriously i gets hard to watch - a team just giing through the motions - hey a motion offense once in a while be useful - love to know turn over count - was woeful and gives team no hope when cant find the open man
little johnnie gone kev's in and i think its time - 2008 be too late
sad but true - the team looks so disinterested - spark up guys believe

The day were a credible poster says "we have no answer for Michael CEDAR" is the day I know our team is beyond shit!!!

Calling all Phil supports for lame arse excuses.....

michael cedar who is here ?? and he rips us apart
anybody know anything about him - probably another adelaide boy making good interstate
he had a day out but if you dont have any d pressure well i guess "happy days at the dome"

OK...years of defending have come to an end, I give up.

Sack Phil..lets look toward 2008/09

too sad

123abc - to point out the obvious, if you're shooting well, the rings don't matter. If you're shooting 10-15% down on the opposition, how can you blame the rings?

Dench came on at quarter time with the sixers up 21-18. Checked out with 6:11 left in the second with the sixers down 25-31. On the court for less than 6 minutes while we were outscored 4-13.

Memo to Phil: Use the Bench, not the Dench.

The 3pm time slot was simply unfair to the Sixers.

Lets sack Smyth they lost by 10 Melbourne lost by 26 seem to have a bit more talent than Adelaide so Westover must be gone twice as quick.Defensively 36ers game plan looked good and was working fine.Offensively they were getting wide open shots and not making them even a couple under the basket i am not sure we can blame Smyth for that unless you think he can shoot for them as well.This time the players need to be in the firing line.Ng was wide open on several shots nothing,Chappelle same wide open no good Sutton same story and Copeland had some wide open ones as well for no return.If the offence is getting you clear open looks and your not making them surely the coach cant take the blame for that.If the offence was getting you nothing but challenged shots different story.

Respect to Mottram for taking some charges, Cooper for making the most of his limited talents and bringing his A-game, Davidson for his usual smart, gutsy effort, Ballinger for doing what he could when he was actually given the ball, Burdon for his energy and effort.

Credit to the Crocs for playing some great defense! We played terrible defense giving up so many open 3's. Our help defense was terrible. Also our offense was terrible (At least we can say we were consistent on both defense and offense :P ). We seem to actually have no offensive sets thanks to the master mind that is meant to be organising set plays! It seems to be all individual stuff out there.

Smyth's comments on the game "Defensively we were really good, we just shot poorly as a group, no one shot well and we looked tentative,". WRONG defensively we were terrible giving them so many open 3's and poor help defense. The crocs seemed to do whatever they liked out there. WRONG we shot poorly because we had no actual offensive sets it seemed so players had to try to create their own shots with poor one on one moves! We look tentative due to your great coaching over the last few seasons that has given us a culture of un-confident players.

Credit to Davidson, Ballinger and Cooper for having great games and showing some heart!

I was one of the people saying Chappell should have a few more games to prove him self but he has had more then enough time now and its time to go. I know he has a family and all but this is business. Another scape goat for Smyth I guess.

Also why do we have a time out with 3 minutes to go and then the Brilliant Ideas of Smyth to continue to foul so we put them at the line and the crowd gets to endure more of a terrible game!

What will some of the excuse's be this time? "They are a great side as they just beat the Tigers!", "We are improving as we halved how many points we lost to them by previously!"

Finally it amuses me that Smyth decides to put Burdon on when we are down by 10 at a critical part in the match yet he wont first try him when we are down by 20-30 vs the Tigers/Sydney. Burdon did very well with his time however a couple of his shots looked a bit shakey. But it does seem he will be able to contribute and his defense doesn't look that bad especially if you compare him with Ng!

As usual, excellent comments from you King James.

There are a few or more players on the team that are still a waste of oxygen.

1.Dench
2.Chappell
3.Sutton(even though he is young)
4.Burton(He is better than Sutton though)

These guys wouldn't make any other team. and the sixer have 4 of them.

congrats to the team to be where they are at with these guys playing.

Joker by your theory we would have beaten Melbourne by 16 today then! Also if you are going to support Smyth at least dont ignore his theories that Townsville would have been tired since they only played a few days ago. So we should be happy we only lost by 10. ummmm right.

I think that all the other teams in league besides Adelaide and Slingers can beat any team on the night if they have a good game. Also I'm not confident that Adelaide can beat any team in the 8 at home besides NZ, let alone on the road. Having said that I do believe we have the talent, size and with a new import, the ability to beat any team. The only thing that is missing is a coach that can put this chemistry together.

King James, I agree. Townsville isn't big, they have Pepper and Vanderwhatever, but Young is no Abney and they have Rillie playing small forward. Wouldn't you think we'd try to attack them inside, with Ballinger, Mottram, Dench, and Cooper? But of course, our beloved coach doesn't know how to coach an inside game, so we are forced to try to match it with Townsville outside, where we DON'T have an advantage. We should have been POUNDING the ball inside to Ballinger from the openning tip.

joker, your theory is BS... You can't say that because Team A lost to Team B then they should beat Team C.

We outright suck and I blame that from the little direction and structure we get from Phil on top of all my other concerns I have with Phil being the 36ers coach.

If we had a draft I'd be calling for "tank season".

End of the day we deserve our position on the ladder and things are going to be getting a lot worse...

Kingames, where do you get your ideas from that suggest the Sixers were terrible defensively? Just compare the two games, Crocs vs Tigers and Crocs vs 36ers.

In the Tigers game Cedar did not play, or if he did, he had zeros right across the board. Rillie 22 points, 9 rebounds, Williams 31 points, 5 rebounds and 7 assists.

In the Adelaide game, Rillie 12 points and 7 rebounds, Williams 5 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists.

I suggest, just as Smyth did, that defensively they were very good in containing these 2 players. As for scouting the players, I suggest Smyth did that as well as he chose the players he was going to target. As Cedar had not played the Tigers game, you can hardly know what to expect. I also believe that this is Cedar's first season in the NBL, who would have known what to expect? What killed the 36ers today was on offence. It was a once off game where the ball just wasn't going through the hoop. It affected all the players including Ballinger who only achieved half the score today since his last game. Defensively they were good, offensively they were crap. Had they been bad on both, they would have lost by 30.

Sorry KingJames, spelling error.

EC, Cedar has been around for 3-4 years now and that is PLENTY of time to have accumulated a scouting report that says "Catch and shoot, loves the wings, hangs in the passing lane on defence".

Any professional basketball coach would and should have scouting reports of each player in the league, even if it reads "bench scrub with no left hand and will hit the occasional uncontested 3".

If a coach scouts game-to-game then that is pretty piss weak and doesn't show much preparation or commitment to the job.

123abc - Why would it matter if the rings are crap ? Don't both teams have to make do with the same rings ?
Seems a bizarre comment to me.... There's another Adelaide national basketball team that seems to make do with the rings just fine !!

dench should be shown the door, surely dodman can play better in the same time given,

chappel may have ONCE been a premier import in this league but alas is no more.

cut him now bring in something new and give us a something to wonder about for the rest of the season,

sutton, im sure hes a great player at a local level but each time he brings the ball down i cringe and have flash backs the jason williams days

bad defence that leaves Cooper guarding Rillie and Davidson guarding Pepper in low post.

When will the big guys realise they aren't ball carriers.

When will Sutton have confidence in his game and play like regular watches of the ABA know he's more than capable of.

When will Smyth run an offence that uses the bigs and not let them do their own thing. Their own thing isn't working they second, third and fourth time guess themselves except for Copeland who shoots when he receives the ball in the front court.

Sloppy defence when they force Townsville to use up 21 seconds of the 24 second shot clock then allow them to stroll thru the key way to put up easy shots or give away cheap slapping fouls and put them to the line.

I've seen under 10s 12s 14s 16s and 18s play with more desire only the under 21 women with their minds on their night out after the game show less desire to be their.

If it didn't insult the Lightning I'd say the sixers played like girls.

On that point moose16, would love to see the 36ers line up against the Lightning.

Wow were any of you critics seriuosly at the game Ballinger had plenty of shots inside the key as did chappelle,Cooper,Mottram was wide open heaps of times on the side of the key just didnt shoot it.Smyth also told the players about Cedar they just didnt respect him dont see how you blame him for that.If the offence is getting you wide open shots and you cant make them how is that a bad offence.I do agree though Chappelle has had his chances time for a new import.Dench just gets in the way and cant defend and turns the ball over to much he can go to.

Moose in regards to the cooper guarding rillie scenario that has been a problem all year .
Coach has them playing a switching D that opens us up to all sorts of exploitation and mismatches .
While we don't play this type of D all game we do use it too often . We also do not have the versatility to run this style and it screams laziness IMO .

Chappell would have been cut by every other team in the league by now and has surely run out of chances .
If he was that inhibited to start the season then why not let him sit the first 5-6 games and get it sorted.
I rate him in regards to his previous seasons and he did always torch the sixers but then again who doesn't.

I think at this point in time all we can ask for is MASSIVE change next season .

Not a very interesting game for the fans. Homicide had little luck and while a few of the 36ers had decent games, overall they second-guessed, missed and fumbled their way out of the game. Crocs didn't even need big games from Rillie, Pepper or Williams to win on the road.

Edit: Not sure that it was that they hadn't scouted Cedar (surely would have - he's been around for a few years), but that they just didn't defend that well.

Good games from Coops and Ballinger, and Davidson didn't give up. Few Adelaide highlights after that.

What was with that goal-tending call? Can anyone explain to me how that was goal-tending? It hit the ring first, right?

one positive to come out of this game was Eze Burdon!
to come of the bench for maybe the second time this season (might be mistaken) and stroke a three in his first few seconds, come out gaurding IMO the most explosive first step in the NBL at the moment in 'homicide williams' and be able to gaurd him quite effectively, even cause one of two fumbling turnovers for his troubles. And finally... Eze Burdon's shot fakes = WOW, no joke, when you come to a game of basketball seeing what is supposed to be the best players in the nation get shot faked so convincingly two or three times in a row. The kid is doing all the right things! keep at it mate.

The reason why i am stating about the rings, is not to get an excuse because of the Sixers loss, but rather that Adelaide generally plays run and shoot. 36ers tend to put up more shots especially three's than other teams and rely on hitting from outside.

The Dome used to have rims that anyone can shoot on and what would make the opposition miss is the pressure Adelaide and the crowd put on them. Now the rims are crap and Adelaide misses more (i can't also deny that they are also shooting badly)

Actually 123abc the rings are brand new, they finally got rid of the old rings that belonged to the glasshouse before they belonged to the dome!

EC - Sure the team did well guarding Rillie and Homicide.....but unfortunately its not 5 on 2! Im sure the Townsville dont care if a couple of regular guns didnt score well as the others on the floor picked up the slack and spanked us!

Isaac, one of the umps might be able to correct me, but as I understand it it would have been a goal tend if townsville used contact with the net/ring to dislodge the ball.

Course, in this case the player got clear contact with the ball and the umpire in question should be made to read the rule book 100 times as penance for one of the stupidest calls ever.

D16, i know they are new, and they aren't doing a good job of letting the ball in.

123, that's a real stretch... remember that, unlike most teams, the 36ers get to train near-daily on their game court and those rings. The rings should be the last excuse!

Yeah, that hole surely needs a gelling period.

Last post, Good gutsy effort by Burdon...pity his second shot he seemed a bit nervous, was hoping his first 3 would settle him. I was impressed, didnt panick as much as Sutton under pressure.
Also caused Sutton to pull his finger out when he returned to the court after Burdon, he was almost a different player, maybe like the one he was last season??

hey, i am not using it as an excuse for the Sixers losing, just saying... the rings suck, get new ones.

I agree with King James from what I saw. The only good things to come out of that game were Davidson, Ballinger and Cooper. The main reason that Cooper was scoring was that Ballinger was being doubled. Sixers can beat any team that's not in the 8 at the moment but will struggle against anyone higher than that.

123abc, yeah it was the rings fault that the ball didn't go in......

Joker, so you were there when Smyth told the players about 'Cedar'?

EC, I think most coaches would scout players during the whole season not only the ones the team plays the next week.......

funny Townsville played on the same court with the same rings they managed to win go figure

townsville also don't train on said court using said rings, but still managed to score more than sixers.

must be Daniel Hughes fault he must have switched the unforgiving rings to the end the sixers were shooting we all must have blinked when he did it.

rings are shit doesn't hold water cause both teams had to shoot at them and one team managed that better than the other.....nothing to do with they ran a better offence god damn they even played an offence rather than the stunned deer offence offered by the sixers or the i'm between the half court line and the 3point line i better jack up a shot in the hope it will go in.

Mutley, where has Cedar been in the last 3-4 years? I don't recall that much information about him in the past and he only joined Townsville in 2006. As far as I know this is the only NBL team he has played. I still say that he doesn't have that much of a history to be able to perform a good scouting on him.

Michael Cedar is in his third season with the Crocs (59 NBL games) - more than enough opportunity to have played directly against him as well as for the team to source game tapes of him against other teams. Coaches would need to be aware of a player's history prior to the NBL also in the case of rookies.

I don't think it was that he hadn't been scouted, just that players made silly decisions. Note Boti's mention (and I recall it too) of a moment when Copeland left Cedar to double another player on the low block. That player simply passed back to Cedar who knocked down the three.

Shame Phil, shame for not doing a comprehensive scouting report on such a highly rated player like Cedar. With stats like the following, what were you thinking?
Date Points Minutes
19/9 0 11.58
22/9 0 13.22
26/9 3 12.00
2/10 11 15.28
6/10 3 27.18
11/10 0 4.53
20/10 12 17.48
26/10 10 16.01
2/11 6 10.27
3/11 7 11.33
9/11 3 11.38
10/11 0 10.47
17// 14 18.27
21/11 5 13.12

EC, in another plane of existence you would be arguing on this forum that every point can be the difference between a win or a loss! Cedar has scored in the teens a few times which says, to me, that he should hardly be ignored! On Sunday, his second quarter was the key to the game.

Remember, there are four coaches this year! They have game tapes. They (assuming they still do it and I don't see why they wouldn't) give each 36er information on their next opponent with a note indicating who their 2-3 most probable direct opponents are going to be. Plus tape(s), I assume.

Its easy to make arguments in hindsight. I hardly saw anything worthy of much time and effort to investigate in these stats. The ooaches were right in putting their efforts into Williams and Rillie. The restriction on Williams more than compensated for the oversight on Cedar. It just wasn't enough to win the game. Maher's presence would have made the difference.

"Might have" made the difference.

The coach staff is paid enough cash to pull their finger out their ar$e and scout each player with a further indepth look prior to game time. How hard is it to pull 30 mins of tape and watch his style and game and make comprehensive notes.

They would of seen it, he hasn't done anything different in any other game he's played this season bar hit his shots against Adelaide. Shots he shouldn't be allowed to get, but did due to players brainfarts.

If a player is averaging over 12 mins a game then he's worth scouting. A lot of damage can be done in 12 minutes.

End of the day, the Crocs won on our home court regardless of Maher playing or not. Can't polish a turd and at the moment the 36ers are a big turd.

Need to get away from the scouting theme which started as a likely mistaken assumption by Mutley. They do scout.

The issue was more that the Crocs got open on the arc (Sheridan hurt a bit too) and perhaps that incident with Copeland doubling the guy in the post - either that was direction from the coaches (gamble on doubling the big and chance the outside shooter) or just a spur of the moment decision made by Copes (Boti assumed the latter in his write-up I think).

Interesting to note that Cedar went for 12/6/2 in limited minutes when we last played the Crocs in Townsville too.

I never blamed the Sixers loss on the rings, i just said get new ones...

Both Townsville AND the Sixers shot badly for the record...
How many times do i need to emphasise it?

The more concerning trend is that while Ballinger/Coops and Davidson do a great job defending the biggest offensive threats on the opposing sides, the rest of the team can't shut down obscure bench players. It is like the team thinks 'well, I've never heard of you, so I aint gonna respect your game.'

17 points later suggests you should have respected his game. No good shutting down the stars of the league if you just let the lesser lights rise to the occasion.

123, you're using a single game as an example of the supposedly problematic rings. Townsville shot within 1% of their team average for the season. Adelaide were poor in that game, but shot around their average in their previous two home games and similar numbers on the road in Singapore. Surely you can see how this looked like a weak excuse:

Adelaide missed many of there shots, i hear that the rings are utter $%^@, get new ones.

Sutton had a shot????

Is that the first for his NBL career??

The rings are $%^@, get new ones, that is all i am saying. I am not saying it caused the Sixers to miss or anything. I just said one line, "i hear that the rings are utter $%^@, get new ones."

For the FIFTH and final time i will say this, it is not an excuse for the Sixers who did shoot badly themselves. When since can i not make that statement? It might not have been clear the first post, but i am pretty sure the second, third, or even fourth was.

Because directly before that was 'Adelaide missed many of there shots, hear that the rings are utter $%^@, get new ones.'

Where did you hear they were $%^@? Who is your source?

It's just the first I've heard of them being bad rings. Were it a concern, I thought they would've been replaced earlier during the various upgrades that have taken place?

i have to stand up for 123 abc here, and NO im not saying it caused the loss, because they should be able to shoot on anyrings, but the rinds at the dome are crap, i play there for district and quite simply they are horrible, the need a new ring and backboard system because they are really bad at the moment.. but the sixers should be able to shoot wherever and whenever

Being that they practice on them every day, you would assume that they are used to them by now??

And that it could be an advantage even? Unless they played an especially jumpshot-driven game against teams that banged it inside?

I echo the comments about the rims, they are just terrible. However, you would think that we could use this to our advantage as they guys have had the most practice on them...

They really need to loosen them up a bit, they are too tight and bouncy for my liking.

And yes I have trained and played an them several times, trust me they are bad.

Also heard a rumour that they were available for the home game against Wollongong but Maher was strongly opposed to having to play on such bouncy rings with little practice. Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Just have to say to sturty6ers I think Cooper main scoring efforts were those horrible shots by Sutton that he read perfectly and just tapped in. Great effort by him, some of Suttons shots Cooper read so well they almost looked like a pass.

It should be an advantage of the Sixers and it is no excuse for any loss however, the rings still suck and Adelaide winning or losing doesn't change it.

What happend to having the softest rings in the league? Eddy got rid of it.

The rings used to be great now changed them during that up grading not as good.