It is a bit mystifying given that compared to last years team I would have thought we had upgraded significantly defensively.

Tyndale seemed to be a very competent defender from the 3 games I've seen him play, Holmes is solid and Schensh, while being very slow should still make it relatively tough at the rim for the opposition given his height. I wouldn't have called Bruce a bad defender either.

No doubt the Sixers are missing Winitana defensively, Davidson isn't fully fit and perhaps Maher has lost another step but even so looking at the personnel the Sixers shouldn't be a bad defensive team.

Looking forward to watching some basketball again on the 25th!

Mystifying is right!

This team has been physically weak ever since the Chairman retired.

Scott hit the nail on the head... When is someone going to step up and knock someone on their ass and make a statement that you can't come into our Paint without consequences.... Right now the lanes run smoother than a shopping centre checkout.

Bring back Reesy to hit some people (accidentally of course) I say!

If he recruited this team and talked up how good they would be defensively and there not who's fault is that ?Please no more posts on we have had injuries the last coach said that and we said he was just making excuses so it can't be any different now.

Leaking in the half court or is it in transition?
I would suggest transition but haven't seen enough to comment.

The thing that bugs me, is the 36ers will beat Perth at home. Hence the frustration at just how horrible we are on the road. There is a lot of talk, and the coach if giving off a fan type opinion of the team right now, which is keeping people on side. But until this team become ROAD WARRIORS i think Ninnis is all talk.

Ninnis needed to call them out.

Their half court defence is terrible. Perhaps Coach needs to employ some sort of punishment system for every easy layup they let through.... something like $50 per player on the court for every easy layup allowed.

They need to defend the paint like they are at war and the enemy is trying to invade. Put some asses on the ground Badboy Piston style.....

Who will step up and be our Bill Laimbeer?

No to be too critical of Scottie here ... but IF (as he has repeatedly claimed) they are practicing defence much more at training than in the past, and that practice is failing to come to fruition on game day, he is as much responsible for that lapse as are the players.

As has been mentioned above, Winitana is out injured and Davo's struggling to get to 100%; but Tyndale should be a very good defender, ditto for Jacob, Schcnscher is slow, but does definitely change shots, Coops will always do his bit on D, etc, etc. There is no doubt that this team is an improvement defensively over last year's team, yet the stats show they are just as bad.

If we can't win without Winitana, what happens when Brett, or Balls, or Tyndale gets injured?

Yes it's very early in the season, and yes, it's refreshing to hear how honest Scottie is with the media; but there are a lot of questions which need to be answered, and I wonder how exactly Scottie's gonna go at answering them.

I see a lot of similarities between Ninnis' Sixers and Smyth's Sixers (the last few years, that is) ... and that scares the crap out of me. What do other people think? Are the defensive lapses simply the result of the team needing more time to gel, or is Scottie falling into the habits of our old coach?

"I see a lot of similarities between Ninnis' Sixers and Smyth's Sixers (the last few years, that is) ... and that scares the crap out of me. What do other people think?"

Liam Flynn is the same guy that was doing the video analysis for the team the last few seasons under Smyth..... I don't know why they kept him they might as well kept Smyth as an assistant coach as well if thats the case. They should have gone with someone else like Justin Schuller.

Also Tyndale is a terrible defender. I urge you all to watch how easily he lets people drive past him and his poor defensive awareness. Hopefully he will have a great game so that I can bite my tongue but I doubt it.

Just out of Interest have any of the Sixers taken a charge this season?

KingJames try to get your facts right Flynn was only there for 1 season and no longer.This team is more talented and is worse defensively to date so something is wrong somewhere and it isn't last years coach or players.So lets stop going there.If we do worse than last year what then.Hope we look at management I don't think they do much to support the coach

I was just pointing out that with two totally different teams and different head coaches we are still getting the same cr@p defence and as another person suggested it is the same as the last couple of season. In which case the person that analyses the defence and breaks it down by video is Liam Flynn. There is no way this team should be losing by 38, 28 and 10 to the hawks which the loss's are similar to last season so that is one of the correlations I have found. The players have been working on defence very intensively as Ninnis has said but that means nothing if the proper analysis of the other team is not done. I am not saying he is the only reason, however I do feel like he is one of the reasons.

Along with the other coaches and players agreed.

Video analysis is only a tool. If it is used poorly by the head coach in coming up wit defencive strategies then it is a waste. If the players don't follow it same thing. Not necessarily the job of the video guy to input the defensive philosophy, just to show the opposition traits.

I questioned the Sixers' defence or lack of it, in the preseason,only to be ridiculed for being a Smyth supporter, therefore knew nothing about the game. I was concerned that given the emphasis on defence by the coach in the media, and on the assumption that coach's emphasis would carry over to the training arena, we seemed to be haemoraging at the defensive end. From memory defence was not in Scotty's vocabulary, when he was a player, and I wondered how he could impart wisdom on something he only had theoretical knowledge of. I also expressed concern that the coaching panel was also lacking experience at the NBL level.

Unfortunately these concerns have been realised and despite the recruiting of a talented playing group, we are in an equal or worse position to that of last year. It is all well and good that Scotty labels the team as soft, but he assembled this group and he ultimately decides who is on the court at any one time. He calls the plays therefore in my opinion he must shoulder the majority of the blame for his teams performance. If he can't cure the defensive inadequacies get someone in who can. If money is a restraint in doing that cut one of the assistants, they appear to be contributing little.

Bake, you certainly did make that call very early and I'll pay that. I'll also pay the comparative lack of experience at NBL level too because that's hard to deny. I think many wanted something fresh into that coaching role and certainly got that, but somewhere along the line the defensive vision hasn't (yet?) come through.

The pre-season is the pre-season and it's hard to judge purely on those results, especially with a couple of late arrivals and missing Davidson (the terrier of that Maher-Bruce-Davidson trio). That's why I would've avoided making too strong a call at that stage.

The Hawks game last Friday is the one I had down as a "really need to win" (and was confident that they would). 2-0 is now essential and a flat performance in either of the next two games will really fire some fans up, I think.

One question I have for others is about that quote from Maher today - that the 36ers have taken about one charge in the last four games. Is that uncommonly low, and are charges something usually realised through team defense or does it more come down to individual ability and decisions?

if you are a hard core defense coach like a US College coach or even AIS, you would be looking for 3+ a game from your man to man defense.

It really comes from Team defense but obviously it is a playing skill also to judge and take position.
And obviously it helps if you are a great athlete like the charge king Dennis Rodman.