Im not overly sure at this point in time, even with wins Loco, the guys are doing what they do naturally. I think guys like Herbert have a game style and are being told to do something other than natural in their games.

Agree, the years of going the hard yards to make a fight in a close game have faded away. We get a few close ones but things go our way. The refs changed their style tonight after half time so what we should have done was change our style and fight for it. Shame it didnt happen.

Cant wait for the press conference

I guess we have more questions than answers at this point. I'm not a 'knee-jerk fire the coach / tear the players a new @ss' type guy. But tonight really frustrated me.

I guess the post-Maher era / searching for a team identity was always going to sting.

It's just... wearing a Sixers singlet comes with an expectation for mine. I dunno. go down with a fight, you know?

You're right Loco, there wasn't enough fight tonight. I think the bigger problem for this team is their inept offence though. Down 10 in the last quarter, even with 6 mins left, I never really felt we were going to bridge the gap, because we just don't have guys who knock down threes, we don't force enough TO's and we look like we have no clue how to read the defence and manipulate it to our advantage.

I think some of it is the team balance - too many drive and dish guys and too few shooters. Its also critical injury problems with Burston and Hill. We can't afford to have those guys unfit. But it starts with Ninnis getting the guys some effective offensive plays and the players executing them properly. I really hope we see something different in Cairns but I'm not holding my breath for a quick turnaround.

^^^ word for word my sentiments.

Ng is the only pure shooter we have. With Burston sat down, no matter Ballinger's range, we just can't have him pulling up from outside; we simply don't box out well enough.

Ugh. So very frustrating.

I agree Loco. There was no guts tonight. I really found myself missing the glory days of players like Sapwell, that would come on and just light up the court with hustle and tough plays. But we can't get down on them. Its round five and our marquee player isn't on the court.

Disappointed with Groves and Cuba Gooding Gilchrist tonight. Pass the ball boys, it's not all about you. And it's boring to watch you sulking after missing a shot.

Even the captain shook his head at gilchrist. Not a good look.

the 36ers have some problems.
penetration at the point,ng no good,b.hill no good.gilchrist on the BENCH no good.
if you want to sack an import, just give him enough rope(court time) and he will hang him self.

family on the bench will cause problems,might save money short term, but not good long term!!

Gilly was buried mentally before tip off. He's better than that.

And for anyone that argues he should have been on? Check the stats and formulate an argument. Please.

They need to forge an identity.

I believe Gilchrist did have some kind of hand injury so that may excuse him a little. Maybe the focus shouldnt just be on just the 36ers but the entire league!!
There are guys starting in many teams who would have been 8,9 or 10 in the rosters only 5 years ago. The entire night was flat,even when we were leading there was no energy both on court or off. The games i have seen so far this season have been plain boring,take out the Ng/Groves alleyop and what else was there to get people excited. Wednesday games are tough as well and only 3919 were there tonight. It was only a couple of seasons ago you could guarentee the tigers in town would bring the biggest crowd of the season no matter what night of the week it was.
Heres hoping things improve as we all want the nbl to succeed but i think they are on a long hard road at the moment.

... no offence man, but i missed the point of the above entirely.

Why keep talking about Burston and getting rid of the guy when the Tigers come without Anstey & Knight and still handed the sixers their ass!

This goes way deeper than lack of players.

As for penetration skull, in the first half I had to wonder who was on Hill Gilly and Groves coz they got in the pain without any hassle...

No fight comes from within...if it doesnt start with a player it comes from the sideline..

While the coaches may be able to coach, there is a shitload more to coaching than pulling plays...

Al has both, i'm still not convinced Ninnis has even one of the two!

Agreew ith the lack of desperation, hunger and fight. It seems like the team is lacking an on-court leader - someone that pulls the team together and leads by example.

My biggest concern is they offense, I don't think we played to poorly defensively, Worthington was just on fire. Why do we not do on-ball screens for gilly, groves and hill I don't understand. We ran a on-ball screen 3 times the whole game which ended in a layup, a foul and a missed open shot. The offense is designed to get guys open looks but when you are not hitting shots you need to run something else scotty.

Lol... the glory days of Sapwell! He'd be loving that quote.

I wasn't at the game, mercifully. I know what you mean though, Loco. Harden up, Sixers!

Dont know about the guys starting who would have been 9 or 10. Quality of polayers is still pretty high this year, but 36 of the 80 players in the league arwe at a new club - it will take time for all clubs to gel.

http://nbl.com.au/index.php?id=15&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=14101&tx_ttnews[backPid]=4&cHash=cd631721c1

That big thing attached to the backboard is called the ring. The Ball is meant to go in it. Second half offence terrible!

I didn't mind the huddle previously (I kinda looked the other way) but it seemed so out of place after the Perth demolition.

P.S Never post after angry loss beers.

"Once upon a time, melodrama aside, pulling on a Sixers uniform meant you'd have your shoulder smashed out of it's socket on an inbound pass and you'd STILL wanna fight the Tigers. You didn't get intimidated or pushed around or bullied.

Tonight?

We laid down and died."

+1 to that.

P.S Fess, that made total sense now that the beers have worn off.

So venting of frustrations aside - where does the side go from here? What has to happen to turn it around?

Personally, I want to see Ng play more of a role... but I've been biased in that regard for about 3 years.

I think 'Tez started to come good.

How much can be attributed to Burston's absence?

In Ballinger's case, life was much easier with Luke on the other side fo the key and Brett spotting up - mroe threats for the defence to focus on.

Ng on the arc and Burston in the key might give Ballinger more room to move. Right now, you'd have to give Groves and Gilchrist any longrange shots they wanted.

Sixers need to stop playing Zone Defence; and need to man up more. For the past 5 years that i've been going to home games, it seems to be the ONLY defensive play the team knows. What happened to the Breakers game, where basic man-to-man defence shut down the Breakers interior game. Why can't we play like that EVERY game; what made that game so special?

It was also evident last night that while Groves can play point, he can't run the game for the side. There was no floor leader last night and it showed with a multitude of double-teams, and players blocking one anothers passing lanes. While Gilchrist does the job when he has his mind on it, there is no proper backup point for the team.

The only good thing to come from last night was Holmes. He's proved again that he is the core of the team. The man just has a sixth sense for Rebounding and should be applauded for his efforts last night. If the team looked at getting him more jump shots, he would be a double-double man every night of the week.

I agree with Locos thoughts about the team and its culture we have been losing that for a few years now but thought with the SOS passion it would return alas last night we showed no direction no fight or any idea how to get back in the game .
I thought our defence was as bad as our offence as Tiger players got easy offensive rebounds , drove to basket uncontested and got easy shots .
Unfortunately most of our players in this team are poor defensive wise apart from Jacob and Herbert at times.
Whilst we cant do too much about it now we have picked a wrong balanced team .
Groves although better game in parts last night we should have had a bigger stronger import with a inside prescence to allow Adam to play his natural shooting game or strong defender or have a outside shot. Unfortunately both Groves and Gilchrist only know one way to consistently score and that is drive to the basket and have no awareness of those with open shots. Once Tigers woke up to this last night we were stuffed for scoring.
Pre - season after Groves was named as our import I spoke of how a Worthington would take us to cleaners and a half fit one with average players around him did.
The only thing we can do is plonk anybody in Centre and start getting some open shots for Adam and NG.
Davo back as PG would be better than 2 imports as at least he can hit a open shot and knows how to find open players.
When Burston gets back least hopefully will put some direction back into team and help defence wise.
Brad Hill will be better for run but his game is similar to the imports.
Whilst looking into crytal ball hard to see us beating too many well coached good teams but will hang in and support SOS and hope.
Finally Jacob you probably should have been captain you were only one that tried their heart out and put their body on the line for team last night .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_defense#Advantages_of_playing_a_zone_defense

"Zones tend to be weak on the perimeter, so they are not very effective against teams with good outside shooters."

"Therefore, teams wanting to slow down the tempo of a game will often choose to play zone."

Which is exactly what baffled me last night. We're down by 12, because of the opposition hitting shots, and there's 4 minutes left.

So....we slow the game down and continue to give the opposition perimeter shots?

I agree with Bretts the man, Jacob was our only player playing with heart last night, although i love Ballinger, and he IS our best player, but im not entirely convinced he should be our captain! If you look at every little huddle we have it's Jacob Holmes who's doing all the talking. Anyway a disappointing loss lets hope we bounce back sooner rather than later...

Offence is tragic. At the start of the Fox telecast the commentators said that the 36ers are the worst 3 point shooting team in the current comp, and that was with Ng going for 70ish% from beyond the arc. There is no excuse for players to miss as many open 3's as we seem to. Groves was great a couple of seasons ago, but the 6ers uniform doesn't seem to agree with him.

We don't really have a go to player on offence at the moment. Ballinger would be the logical choice, but he's used to having the support of a Schencher or Maher, not being the sole focus of the offence. I hold my breath every time the shot clock runs down because you just know that noone wants to take that pressure shot. It's always just a prayer to beat the shot clock and Gilchrist was lucky that the Townsville final shot went down, coz he sure as hell looked like he didn't want to take it.

The 36ers have never struggled with points production before, it was always defence that we lacked. Guess there's a first time for everything.

At least if Hood Sweeney pull out now, we're a lock in for Hoover as a major sponsor given the degree of sucktitude.

Did we have that much of a problem with the shot clock? It's not as though Melbourne didn't - I noticed Crosswell throw up at least three shots that he wouldn't have normally taken because the Tigers couldn't get a better shot.

Can't believe you guys zone to the degree Big Marty says.
It's easy pickings for spot up shooters. There is no accountability in defense and to top it off it is hard to get any semblance of energy out on court.
And against Melbourne it's what they want because they can pick there moment and where to attack.

Pity Gilchrist hasn't quite made the mark hoped for. He seems fragile goods at this stage and teams are backing off him and challenging his ability to hit from deep.
It looks like you've got two imports trying to do the same thing and neither doing it very well. If he can handle ball why aren't Sixers running on balls?
From what little I have seen of your offence and reading all of your posts, it looks like 5 out watching some guy with ball trying to penetrate and create.

Melbourne also had trouble structuring their offence. I think that they struggled as well as the 6ers last night, the only difference was that as much as everyone thinks that Wortho's a tool, he stood up and took responsibility for the Tigers offence in the second half. Nobody did that for us

As i said early i don't think are defense was bad giving up 81 points in 40 minutes is alright and Wortho was on fire. Our offense was offensive, any person who as played any organised ball can see that.

If you can get stops though it gives you the opportunity to run and the game takes on a different dimension.
Its hard pyschologically starting from under your hoop and puts some much more pressure on your half court game.
To me you zone as a change up and not for long OR you are trying to contain bigger opponents OR the opposition can't shoot from perimeter.