Yeah last year it was live on mobile but delayed on browser if it was a TV game.

Hard to tip opening round games.

Either DJ will have a great game and Wildcats lack of height will be obvious or Wildcats new found offensive game will be too much for 36ers to keep up with.

Wildcats by 7.

Gibson definitely not playing? His Twitter feed suggests he's in Perth and doesn't hint that he isn't playing.

Bloody oath, the ASAPIndex predictor says Wildcats by 23 - definitely too weighted by last years results. Got within 3pts of the NZ-Woll result though...

Really hope we can do it tonight, and in style. If the Wildcats get this right, the buzz will get those memberships back over 8,000 and we'll have no sub 10k games again this year.

No audio on my nbl.tv feed.

Awesome.

Enjoying this game so far, anyone got a fiba live stats link?

Way too many soft calls when guys are jostling for position in the paint. Hopefully this isnt want the NBL is go8ng to turn into. Otherwise a great game at halftime.

I agree there's been a few soft calls in the paint, but otherwise a good game to watch so far.

Great plays from Ennis and Ervin on either end, some nice shooting from DJ and a great spin move from Beal too.

I thought it was interesting that Joey started BJ. I actually think the Sixers looked good early with that extra size, but BJ got into foul trouble and so they've had to go away from it.

Once the Sixers had to go a bit smaller I thought the Cats came back into it, controlling the boards and getting a lot of easy open looks from kick outs, which the Sixers defenders couldn't recover to.

That last 2 minutes was horrendous for a one possession game! Both teams just reverted to hero ball and it was ugly.

Otherwise what a great game to kick off the FTA coverage. Adelaide needs to figure out how to keep ervin in control in fast break situations but take the ball off him more in the half court. Gibbo should help with that though. I thought they went to shit down the stretch because of some dumb guard play.

And Teys with two airballs from deep that werent even close off open looks. Ouch.

Lots to like about both teams though. Should both be around the mark all season long.

Good signs from Adelaide despite the loss. Two starters out and barely lost. Schenscher looked alright and the players hit FTs.

Yeah not liking the hero ball on the few plays before that time out.

Joey has the sixers playing great ball. Loving the high-low!

Classic Redhage - crap shooting all game and then he makes a tough shot that looked like it was about to get blocked! Tough for the Sixers from there, because if there's one thing they don't do well its make threes!

Ervin some poor decisions down the stretch. Not sure what instructions Joey gave the team, but there was no attempt to setup a post up for DJ or even BJ Anthony. Ervin needed to recognise that against the Wildcats, getting the ball inside to our big men is a better option to start the offence.

Good game though. Both teams looked very good despite missing key players. From a Sixers point of view it was just great to see our team playing with confidence and purpose.

Really liked what BJ Anthony showed tonight. He needs to cut down his fouls, but he adds much needed rebounding and toughness and is quicker on his feet than I thought.

I really like you're 6ers team this season. With combination of inside game and a great slasher in Creek and Cadee who can hit the three has the makings of a bonafide championship contender.

I really liked the crisp 6ers ball movement which to me indicates a cohesive unit which very impressive. Once Gibbo and Frye return, they will win a lot of games.

Good signs from both teams. Only real weakness Adelaide will have this year is a lack of outside shooting - If Gibson is your best shooter you're not a good shooting team and all the other guards are penetrators. Johnson was awesome and Schenscher good.
Perth looked good especially Ennis. Knight will definitely help

Great game to watch! I am really looking forward to seeing the team with Gibson and Frye in the line up, to be as competitive we were without 2 starters is a really good sign.

Ennis is going to be a force this year and will push a lot of players and hopefully up the entertainment value in some of the games.

Gutted we lost but I can see some good signs and the style of play was a lot more entertaining. Love Ervins passing.

DJ played the best game I've seen him play for us tonight, and I was there the night he hit 33 against the Tigers (the game Balls got injured in late 2011/12). A game high 28 points from 9/13 shooting (leading both teams) and some good work under the basket with 6 rebounds. Seems Joey has been working on his D a bit over the winter.....its still not great but better than his efforts over the past 2 seasons.

Peach may have only have hit 2/7 for 4 points, but he was a monster on D. 10 rebs (7 def), and 2 blocks.

And it was good to see Mitch Creek get some decent court time. 16:35 in his comeback game, with 10 points to boot. He'll take some confidence from that.

Could we have won if Gibbo was out there?

Agree with the sentiment. An impressive loss, if such a thing exists. Both teams can play A LOT better, just a question of who improves the most over the year.

I like the new hands off rules, but would like to see a bit more physicality in the rebounding stakes. A player comes over the top - call it. Otherwise, let them jostle for best position. Way too many 'offensive' rebounding fouls called.

Overall thought we played a pretty good game with a few small periods where we lost composure and it cost us bad. REALLY hate the soft calls under the ring, I hope they taper off though the year or I will go nuts with frustration. Touch wood we keep up the decent FT shooting we showed this game.

My take away from this game is injuries aside we should be a fun winning team to watch.

With all due respect to the Wildcats, I think they were a little lucky to win that game.

Joey I think outcoached Gleeson.

Joey actually had a good plan, as you can see with DJ and Luke's effectiveness.

Wildcats did not look good on offence, whilst I have a lot of respect for Damo's D, and league best hustle, his point play is not great.

It was Ennis that saved them.

I cannot see this team winning a Championship with so much jump shooting.

Great to have the NBL back.

Can't say Perth didn't deserve to win its, though it could have gone either way.

DJ could dominate this league if he can keep it together. Just starting to come into his prime as a big man. Offensively, if he plays within himself, he is basically unstoppable with his height and speed. The proof though whether he has taken it to the next level will be three quarters the way through the season if he doesn't drop his head when things start getting tough.

To the anon poster above - there were 10,200 in attendance so i dont know what your going on about. A great crowd. Just a bit late arriving to the game.

Adelaide played a very smart and composed game. Daniel Johnson was impossible to stop. I dont really understand all the hate he recieves here.

Game could have easily gone to the Sixers. I thought they played better throughout. Ennis, Beal and Wagstaff hitting timely 3s got us over the line. Redhage was awful but hit the shot to win the game so cant be too annoyed with his game.

TV coverage - dissapointing. Nothing new at all. Even the background music was the same 1 track played all last season! Graphics exactly the same. Only thing i liked was the extended coverage post game. Have a feeling it will be the same or get worse once Carfino starts.

Isn't it funny how your impression of a game whilst its going on can really differ from the actual stats? I was whinging through the whole game that we were getting destroyed on the rebounds, particularly offensively, with all of the Adelaide bigs. And yet somehow we had more rebounds, even offensively?

Thought Adelaide looked great, were playing out of their skins. We really had no counter to Johnson, he just did as he willed. Ervin and him were great to watch, in those brief moments when I could be objective about the whole thing.

Happy with the win, great games from Ennis, Beal, Jervis, Wagstaff and Hire. Redhage was poor, although very, very clutch, and loved the little cameo from U'u, did some good work. Beal seems to just be in need of about 5% more polish, a little restraint, maturity and confidence and he will absolutely explode, showed some great potential to do much more. Redhage, well, his pre-season was great, not sure why he struggled so much today but I'm sure its transitory.

Too early to make comparisons with the New Zealand-Wollongong game, Adelaide was a far stronger prospect, even wounded as they were, than Wollongong. Honestly, I think the 36ers will be the biggest thorn in Perth's side this year, they seem perfectly built to take us apart, especially without Knight. We'd have lost that game if it had been at Adelaide Arena!

Btw, did anyone else notice Ch 10 coming up with insane maths in their stats? I swear I saw one of their stats say 2-6 from 3 was 26% instead of 33% and various other bad calcs.

@Wildcat Fan,

In their online report, Wildcats listed 10,700 as the crowd.

Probably affected by a few factors - Wellington Rd redevelopments would have had a knock-on effect to the cancellation of train services along most of the major lines. Combined with a 6:30pm start time. Hopefully we converted some walk-ups to members, they were running the offer to count your ticket cost against your membership cost, which is good.

Yep the stats from channel 10s graphics were a bit off werent they. I dont want to be too critical or nitpick at the little things, but getting the things that you can control right makes a big difference in the overall production.

Thanks Nathan - any crowd over 10000 is fantastic. And in perth, with the detour from the bridge on the roe street end and early start, a very nice turn up in the end.

I know you wanted to see a blow out win , but a close win like that will please plenty of people who thought there were a few too many blow out games last season. This was encouraging and the Wildcats will get better as they get used to each other and the new style of game too.

Also, as a tip for anyone making an away trip to Perth, Shafto Lane for post game munchies!

Adelaide can bring there b team and still have a chance. They love coming to perth! Few soft calls in the post and perth, i think did well on d. Had a state player playing his 1st game against dj and the ranga in front of 10 thousand + no knight all in all got the win and with a new look team they will only get better. Winning a close game can do wonders.

Pretty good game IMO for Round 1 of the season.

For the Cats, we haven't gelled yet but I like the combination of skills sets we have on the roster. Should be a good season if Ennis doesn't exercise his out clause.

Adelaide look like they could be scary good once they have their full team on the floor.

Great to have the NBL back again :)

Well HoldenV8, obviously having Gibson would have helped Adelaide - just as having Knight would have helped Perth. But looking at the 36ers plus / minus splits (adjusted so points from free throws after a substitution are allocated to the players on the court at the time of the foul):

Starters
Cadee: -7 in 25:28
Ervin: +2 in 32:33
Petrie: -3 in 29:26
Anthony: +3 in 15:20
Johnson: -6 in 31:16

Bench
Schenscher: +4 in 24:08
Teys: +4 in 20:39
Creek: -3 in 16:35
Sims: -9 in 4:30

Most used groups:
Ervin Cadee Petrie Johnson Schenscher: -2 in 5:52
Ervin Cadee Petrie Anthony Schenscher: +2 in 3:21
Cadee Teys Creek Anthony Schenscher: -1 in 2:45
Cadee Teys Creek Johnson Schensher: +2 in 2:45
Ervin Cadee Teys Petrie Johnson: -3 in 2:26

Best performed groups:
Ervin Teys Petrie Johnson Schensher: +6 in 2:05
Ervin Teys Creek Petrie Schenscher: +4 in 2:10

Worst performed groups:
Sims Teys Creek Johnson Schenscher: -6 in 1:56
Ervin Creek Petrie Anthony Johnson: -4 in 1:02

So while plus / minus does not reflect any one individuals' performance, I think it is telling that the 6ers were -9 with their DP on court, which almost certainly wouldn't have been required if either Gibson or Frye were available.

Only 6 rebounds for the game from the 36ers bench. We should not have gotten beaten so easily on the boards by a Perth team without their centre.

I am liking the work ethic by Petrie and BJ,
But yeah need to use Earvin better down the stretch.

^ I really thought we were getting murdered on the boards, just seeing Adelaide bigs pull in rebound after rebound.

Guess that's more of a function of the rebound disparity I was accustomed to last year....

A lot to like about the 6ers this yr, they have the right coach and front court and back court balance to do v well. Looked a better team than Perth who relied heavily on Ennis, rebounded well and won despite little or no scoring from Martin.
6ers will be hard to stop, will score freely under new foul rules.

Anthony is just about the most important pickup now after seeing him play. 3 point shooting could be a problem.

Three point shooting is a definite problem and not helped by Gibson and Frye being out, but at least we have a great team when it comes to scoring inside or driving in.

Would feel more comfortable if a couple of guys were deadly from range though.

Teys doesn't appear to be a reliable shooter. Don't know much about him so could be proven wrong with his previous percentages or whatever. Did show a bit of leadership and toughness at times when starters were resting though.

Not a criticism, but Burdon or a Cedar brother etc would have been useful. Not knocking Teys at all though.

Yeah great signs for Adelaide last night. Quite frankly, everything improves when good ball handlers come back (regardless of whether they're good players. That means better looks from the three point line, much much better in transition etc. Last night's performance showed they are right on track for a championship.

Defensive initiative was the biggest take away. Very impressed

Wildcats definitely with a different coaching philosophy than last year with Lisch the only player above 30 minutes a game and we had what 4 players play over 30 minutes and Redhage 36.

Interesting small ball out there with Redhage, Hire and 3 guards (Burdon, Dollar and Martin) up against the two 7 footers!

The crowd was very tame except for the last minute when it got very loud and the whole behind the scenes felt disorganized with few cheerleader performances and not even a single wildcat roar... It just felt like everyone was out of practice cheering the team on compared to how loud we were during the finals series last season.

I was impressed with the game but still some missed lay ups (mainly by Redhage and Dollar) so hopefully the rims aren't to blame for that.

Thanks for the game Adelaide, BRING IT violet crumbles

I wouldnt judge the 36ers three-point shooting on that game in the worst shooting gym in the country! But no doubt they will need most of their ok perimeter shooters (Frye, Ervin, Petrie, Johnson, Cadee, Anthony) to have decent years just to keep defences honest.

I like the fact they didnt settle for a heap of threes though.

Can anyone get the replay of the game on NBL.tv yet?

Thanks Anon, I'm still only getting the Breakers game on replay even if I click on the Perth v Adelaide game!

Thanks Anon, I'm still only getting the Breakers game on replay even if I click on the Perth v Adelaide game!

@Proud,

I hate to suggest it, but I think losing the GF like that on home court took the wind out of a lot of supporter's sails and we might be paying for that failure for quite some time to come. No problem with a Breakers championship, but having it happen in front of 13k Perth supporters in game 2 was a worst-case scenario for the NBL - much better to have gotten a third set of ticket takings, ratings, and a much better crowd reaction with a third game Breakers win.

that made the 3rd championship so much sweeter than the rest, cutting down your new nets in your new gym.

Wish you'd cut the rings down with them!

haha but they looked ok last night vs the sixers

Schenscher looked good for his first decent run in ages. Must have brought him and the team/coaching staff a lot confidence.

Some excellent high/low action happening and this can only get better.

Ervin didn't do well in the last couple of offenses. Appeared to force a shot instead of creating. Teys looked a little out of it ( nervous about his first 36'ers NBL game?) but looked very good in patches against Melbourne Tigers. Hopefully will come good.

Looking forward to seeing Frye in action with his penetration. seems to be able to squeeze through the smallest os spaces.

Mitch Creek an excellent return to the NBL.

Bring on Wollongong

@Mystro,

At least we got the consolation that your mob were deprived of seeing them win it in person, so, you know, pros/cons.

Lol with Nathan!

Yeah the people to my right at the games renewed but the young fellas to my left didn't but 2 of the 3 made it to every game last season except the grand final as it was too expansive (ill never understand that)

I just hope that like last season everyone was a bit 'wait and see' and the longer the season goes the more we find our voice, but the court announcer has a job and hopefully he does it better against the Kings.

It felt weird as I lost my voice at half time in the grand final yet against Adelaide barely anyone around me clapped or yelled and I still had voice come games end!

It's the same every season, and has been forever.
The crowd (in Perth at least) always takes a game or two to get into it, just like the general game night presentation always takes a game or two to smooth out.
I'm tipping that things will be better this week, even if the crowd maybe isn't as big.

Some good thoughts up on this game

PlusMinus- did you do those stats yourself or find online?

Did them myself using the livestats play by play. Was interested to have a look at Joey's rotations, and perhaps get some insight into how he might use guys in the future. Will be interesting to see what he does when everyone is healthy - hopefully starting this weekend.

An entertaining game, wait til we see them at full strength.
L.Schenscher and B.Anthony had good games, but
D.Johnson made 28points,then subbed out tooo long, didn't get anymore.

Was shocked when I stopped seeing Johnson's number out there (had to do it by eye, stupid score board was ridiculously wrong about who was on court at any given time).

As he was murdering us rather casually all game, I'd have thought Wright would have told him to stay out there the whole time!