Cant wait not just for the Hodge thing but to see a good and noisy crowd which will be huge .
Nothing better than walking into stadium about 10 mins before game and there is already a real buzz about the place .
Really dissapointed and frustrated that sounds like Burston is out again . We really need him Sat. to help us out with Johnson and Worthington and blocking up the lanes for the Hodge.
Looks like Jacob will be in for another busy night on and around the boards.
Its going to be a tough game please---- please dont let us lose to this mob.
Reckon should have given Davo. a guest appearance game

Put Brad in a Hollywood Seat I reckon.

heheh gold isaac... and have him Twittering all through the game :)

Sooo many mates that only go a few times a year are hitting this one. Cannot wait!

Who is bringing the rubber cheque?

forgot this was on tonight... next time Hodge is in town I shall be getting myself a hollywood seat for sure

Often the hardest games to win are the ones you are supposed to!
This puts extra pressure on Sixers, never mind the Hodge thing.
If you can hold up defensively, DENY PENETRATION and stop Worthington from getting 20+ your guys should hang on.
Melbourne have everthing top lay for.
Sixers have everthing to lose.

Centrebet:

Adelaide, $1.35
Melbourne, $3.25

Line is -6.5 (Kad's guess earlier this week was -7, very close.)

Ricey, unless we play melbourne at home in the finals (unlikely), or Hodge plays for another team this season (likely??), this is Hodge's only appearance in adelaide in the 09/10 season.

"He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy"

why the hell isnt it on fox!! i cant get to the game and cant stream it. its one of the biggest games of the year if not the biggest and fox decide not to show it!! amazes me in dissapointment!!

After being told I can be kicked out for talking shit in the Hollywood section I decided courtside behind Tigers will be better option lol... ahhh, shall be good night of pissing Hodge off!

worho allready tearing us a new one ,AGAIN

how did the intro of Hodge go?

Stats frozen for me too. Stream going great guns though!!! :)

Stats are back on sixers 57-55 8.30 left in 4th

Good build up to a play off atmosphere - everyone's caught up in the drama,intruige,excitement and quality of the game - except FOX.

YEAH TIGERS!!!
Good come back game Nate!

Hodge Hits a massive shot to give the tigers the lead. he was big when it counted. The tigers with no LK, Anstey and Knight, thats a monster win.

Then he stomped on Brett Maher's signature.

Sixers should have sewn it up in regulation!
Momentum with Tigers at end of reg. and into OT.
Shocking OT performance.......
Way too many 3's that of course miss in the pressure of it all.
Given the Tigers the leg up they have been waiting for.
So demoralising for team and fans and other teams that would have wanted to see Tigers on their knees ................

He who has the last laugh...........

Instead of focusing on Hodge, how about we learn to control the ball? OUR players lost the game! I'm not an NBL player and it's easy for me to sit here and say, but we would have taken the W tonight had we controlled the ball when we needed to!

Our players got caught up in the hype of Hodge being on our court, it was always going to happen....but the biggest send-off we could have given Julius & the Melbourne Tigers, instead of yelling "Hodge is a Wanker", is by winning on our court.....

So I wasn't the only one that thought hodge stomped on mahers name intentionally?

1. Refs were PATHETIC.
2. Sixers blew it in the clutch. Again.
3. Hodge deserves his face through a plate glass window.

Sack Ninnis, the fact we once AGAIN played without a centre when Cooper is clearly contributing is pathetic, 1 extra rebound game won.
Some bad decisions by the players yeh but Ninnis is there wholly based on his so called decisions and Im sick of watching Ballinger have to defend 3 bigs with Holmes.

Hill should never step on the court Ive said this through out the years and I wonder if ppl are starting to realise that Im freaking right! He is 100% a liability and another reason Ninnis should never be able to coach another game.

Considering how undermanned the Tigers backourt was, Cortez Groves Should have done better.Gilly had a very good 1st half, but he was'nt a factor after that. Overrall i get the feeling the 6ers probaly took the Tigers for granted.

Skud.............I AGREE.

Nothing more fustrating than seeing Adam Ballinger hold off two and three talls'.

He is the f@#$ing key to games like this.

This game was a wake up call for Gilchrist.

There were many opportunities missed...........and I mean more than 1 player touching the f@#$ing ball before trying to drive it home.

What a massive game what a waste of a win.
What was worse us losing game we had
Referees
Key players going missing those that were not out injured again
Worthington taking us to the cleaners again the arrogant SOB.
But wait there is worse the most unbelievable behaviour by a player I have ever seen with Hodge stomping on our greatest player ever name not once but 3 times at end of game.
This guy shits all over our club and treats all with total disdain now comes back and acts worse.
If he is not suspended or fined over this then NBl will not have control over anything.
If we are serious about winning consistently then Sixers have to replace Groves he was a liabilty out there when we needed people to help out

I hate saying it, but +1 to Skud.

Love the guy, but if Bev was coaching, we'd be miles ahead.

We definitely blew this game. We should have won it and it should not have gone into overtime.

I knew u'd come around eventually Loco :)

I love Scotty and respect him to death, but... enough. Dribble penetration doesn't work. Shot selection pathetic. Ball rotation crap. Subs questionable. C'mon man.

We choked tonight and lost the game. The Tiggers did not win it, we lost it.



PS Liked the Tigger into Skip!

we needed a center out there for at least 5mins in the 4th quarter.
We gave them the paint and they took it.


It was while we had a center out there that we caught up and took the lead.
Makes all the difference defensively.

Refs!!!! foul count 29-18
Mugger Worthington 3 for the game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Crowd brought the refs back a bit at the end but what about the other three quarters. Are they really the best available? Jacob and Brad in particular wouldnt think so.
Very dissapointing. We have the talent out there but not always
the dynamics. Eg Cortez and John do the same thing at the top and shouldnt be on together any more than necessary.

Refs destroyed the best game of the year. Not even worth mentioning it - beyond pathetic.

Jack Toft "We choked tonight and lost the game. The Tiggers did not win it, we lost it."

Yep.

Obviously the refs are escaping a bit of attention due to No-J Simpson but they clearly had a greater effect on the actual game than him. How Ray Hunt can continue to referee games at this level is completely beyond me and the new guy with the douchebag hair is almost as bad. Send both of those cheating bastards back to the ABA please.

For the 6ers, the Pitbull was outstanding in every facet of the game but FT shooting.

Herbert was our best player defensively and killed Judas when he was on. IMO it was the biggest coaching mistake Ninnis has ever made to leave him on the bench later in the game rather than Ninja or Hill, and I RARELY criticize Scotty.

Agreed that we should have made the most of our numerous opportunities throughout the game. Gilchrist's free throw shooting was awful and again we had major problems running an offence to get a percentage shot up. Refs were abominal. That Monopoly man ref needs give his umpiring licence back to Kelloggs. Seriously, how many times did he blow soft fouls on the defense from half court when neither of the officials closer to the action called anything? Also, molesting players on the inbound pass seems to be ok, it happened so often during this game. That uncalled bear hug that Crosswell pulled out was special as well. I can't remember seeing a game when one team had almost every player on the court ready to foul out on the next foul. Worthington could have kicked Holmes in the nuts and Holmes still would have worn that call! So frustrating!! The umpires can thank goodness that the crowd was busy with Hodge at the end of the match.....

Herby has had an interesting progression from the start of the season, if he can keep up tonights intensity and maintain 10+ points he will have a spot next season in my book.
Jacob got a bit worked up tonight and it was great to see, would like to see more of it. Suspect most of it came from the umpiring though. Even Jacob, calm as he is, had his boundries pushed tonight.
Brad got a pretty raw deal too. Worthington absolutely mugged him to disrupt his excellent defense on Hodge and it worked. Out came the bottom lip.
Cortez seems to struggle to give his best. Could Scotty do something to get more from him?

Again, totally agree with X. Was painfull as all hell.

Totally agree with X, Herbert should have played lot more than Hill, her was more of an offensive threat and his d on Hodge was the best on him than any of the other 36ers.
Scotty did ok except for right at the end, with his player rotations except for the Herbert - Hill rotation and i recon didnt give Cooper enough time overall.
But those refs were shocking! couldnt believe it!

Why do we put up with 2nd grade refs? The 36ers'handling of the game in the last few minutes was dreadful and yes the likely cause of the loss, but you have to wonder how much the refs contributed as well. So many calls that should have been made were ignored, so many calls that should not have been made were called. Do refs travel these days making good use of the best ones available? We seem to be stuck with the same crappy refs all the time. There were only 2 games last night in the league, was there no other quality ref available to travel to Adelaide?

No one has made mention of this but in the last second of OT, Darren Ng had the ball in his hands attempting a 3 point shot. He was completely mugged by the opposition and a foul should have been called. Instead the 1 second took only 1 second to expire the clock and the 3 refs immediately made there way off court. I thought to myself, where in the hell are they going? They haven't finished their game yet. It just looked like they had had enough of the game and just hanging out for it to end. Darren needed to go to the line with 3 free shots and the possibility of another OT session. This one error on the refs part could have cost the game for us despite the fact that the 36ers put themselves in that position.

Sixers lost that one. If Hodge had hit even one more FT in regulation, we wouldn't even have got overtime.

I thought Hill was a mistake in defending Hodge as he got backed down too easily. We should've opened with Herbert, IMO. But, it came down to the last few plays and we fumbled an in-bounds and then lost it off a defensive board.

I thought that Crosswell was excellent for the Tigers in his first game back from injury.

I guess at least I had the $50 on Melbourne to cover some drinks after the game. Pretty sour feelings after seeing Hodge stomping on Maher's signature.

Could this be a turning point for both teams?
Certainly for Melbourne it is, but what about Sixers. Can they recover?
Have they been over achieving and settling into their rightful place, just out of the 4.

Isaac, what are your thoughts on the last second of play when Ng attempted a desperate 3 point shot to take the game to a second overtime? Since posting my previous commnent, I had the luxury of seeing a replay of that moment on the news tonight. Darren was tackled to the ground by several Tigers players. There would have had be some pushing there. Was a foul not warranted and a visit to the foul line for 3 shots? There was another 1 second on the clock and therefore the game had not ended.

Haven't seen a replay, but my thought at the time was that he hadn't necessarily been fouled. But, as I said, I haven't seen a replay. What had a bigger impact was the team passing around looking for a better option. Sometimes they just need to get a clear look and take it rather than umming and aahing and wondering if they should take a different shot.

At times earlier in the game, our offence didn't look too good and we were lucky that the Tigers weren't having much luck at the other end.

BTW, for those interested, I asked today what caused the delay before overtime. Apparently there was a discrepancy between stats and scoreboard and they thought there was a chance that Adelaide were actually meant to be one point up.

That's exactly what I suggested (jokingly) during that delay. Oh well, wishful thinking.

EC, same, but my thought was that perhaps Melbourne had already won the game. Can't imagine what they'd have to do if the stats showed that!?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/12/06/2763357.htm

A link for those who missed last night's post game antics of Julius Hodge.

Isaac it also shows the Ng "foul" in the last second.

See, I don't think that's a foul. I think Ng lost control of the ball and the Tiger only makes some body contact after he has more control of it. It's noted on the boxscore as a turnover by Ng. Rough finish given that Darren had played a decent game.

Thanks Isaac for clearing up the delay, thats the second time this year Ive been sitting in my seat wondering whats going on. Are the announcers not able to tell fans that theres a delay while scores are checked or SOMETHING.

Thanks to Ben Fitz for running out onto the court and standing up for Brett, nice to have some owners that are willing to put it on the line.

I think you'll find he was on court at the end of the game to hand out the little balls the players throw into the crowd.

IMO Ben didn't run on the court with the intention to confront Hodge, he would have already been on court.

With Hodge on 4 fouls and his emotions out of control - why didn't the Sixers take it to him? The 5th foul was there for the taking.
Worthington is the best Aussie in the NBL.
Saturday nights refs must come from from Mars or Melbourne.