Sixers by 8

Please dear god, Wollongong, save us from our incompetence.

what Nathan said.

Wool on gong by eeee leven! Not my wish but I have a good "sick sent" or was it "sixth sence"!

U think, why don't the hawks and crocs play every game this way?

@jack toft u ever been to the gong?

Wtf is going on this weekend?

Thank you hawks. From cats fans

What the heck did I just watch?

Will someone please step up and play some D. Wollongong doing whatever they want on offense.

Pitiful effort defensively. Hawks are an ok team at best, to give up 60 in a 20minute half, just shows the 36ers werent really prepared for this one. Shame they didnt treat this one like a final, Perth losing opened the door.

Talk about spreading the wealth...

Just like Cairns last night -- a high stakes game and you just fall to pieces. Just like the Miami Heat today, lost @ Utah today after beating the red-hot Clippers in LA.

The fact they have lost every quarter is unacceptable in every way. Joey might have something to explain on this one. Wrong time of year to not be remotely competitive.

My bad mangaged to break even in the fourth, sadly thats deemd a positive today.

Thanks Wollongong. A top of the table clash coming up though the form of Perth and Adelaide suggests otherwise

In a word......ouch.

thanks for the spoiler statsheet stuffer.

I agree with anon, after watching the farcical game last night in Cairns which looked like a couple of SEABL teams at best, I think the league is tight because of mediocrity.

who the hell mentions a game score not related to a game thread in any way without a spoiler alert.

isaac i would love to see a red card system implemented on this site

Small crowd in the `Gong today. Official attendance was only 1,840 according to the NBL website. Have to say it sounded louder than that on TV.

The bottom two teams have now beaten both of the top two teams this season. You got to love that tight a league.

Incredible display by Wollongong today, reminded me of what they did to Perth in about R4 or 5 last season at home.

My bad, Phil.

Phil, it's what you get for being a Miami fan

Of all the NBA games on today, why would you want to watch Utah?

^^Nice way of thinking, anon. With the nature of this league, you have to say that either Perth or Adelaide get a jolt of confidence and go on a tear after a win next week.

Now both 6ers and cats coming off poor games will be fired up and backs to the wall for next week. Im envisaging a grinding defensive slog

You'd have to say both coaches would be preaching defense as first, second and third priorities next week.

"To be annihilated by the bottom team at this point of the season unfortunately confirms the 36ers still aren't serious and just pretenders this season."

So does that mean Perth are pretenders also since they lost to Townsville by 13.

Understand that any team can beat any team and that is great for the league.

Most concerning thing about todays game was once again the defense. No team defense is currently happening. Full credit to the Hawks, they played great and never gave Adelaide a chance.

Yep, no shame in just losing to anyone in this league, every team is talented, but the flipside of that is you shouldn't be getting blown out of the gym.

At the end of the day it's not the loss though, it's how you respond to it, and Adelaide have a hell of a weekend to do that next week in Perth and Melbourne.

Anon#456376 - Yes, a quick game. They saved 8 minutes by it not being close in the last 2 minutes. So no intentional fouling meant the last 2 minutes only took two minutes, not 10 (thankfully). Then there were hardly any time outs. McLeod didn't need to call them because Wollongong were executing perfectly throughout. Not sure why Wright didn't call more. The refs let a moderate amount of contact go uncalled as well. Didn't affect the outcome or the margin, though.

Overall verdict - defence wins finals and 36ers need to learn how to play it or they'll be through n two in the semi finals. Playing to hold onto 2nd place next weekend.

I understand what youre saying anon, but if Adelaide respond and win two next week with help from this spur nothing is really lost. If they don't respond well this will come back to hurt them.

Let's not forget though, Wollongong have beaten three of the top four and been desperately unlucky not to have beaten Melbourne too. They are a good team.

Starting to wonder if the Umpires arent been directed to even the league out a bit. Few games where the top team has been screwed on many many calls.

Not really buying it in this case, skud.
I can only really speak for the Wildcats, but we've lost 3 of our last 4 games.
One of those resulted in a lot of whining about reffing from Cats fans (even if you accept is as a factor, the Cats still let the Tigers get close enough to allow it to be a factor, in our own building) the other 2 were good ol' fashioned clear cut losses to teams that played better.
Can't blame the reffing today for that arse-kicking either.

@Cats 4 life - too many times!

Bit concerned with the 2nd straight game of just 1,800 people...

I think this weekend showed how close all the teams are this season. Let's give credit to where credit is due. The Hawks played well and well as a team. 25 assists shows how well. Looking at the box score, the only real difference is in the outside game.

On a positive note, looks like Mitch Creek had a great game. For those who played more than a minute, best DT ppm. Obviously going to be a long week for the Sixers this week.

1,840 attendance is a concern. The Corrimal RSL Club would get more than that at their Monday night Bingo

Thanks for that input natwhereyouat, Sunday afternoon 2pm is a great time in Wollongong............... to be at the beach.

not a miami fan but was thinking of watching that game today. ill just watch another game and get over it pretty quickly.


as for the sixers game i liked what i saw of frye early season but now teams have well and truly worked out they can back off him and take away the drive knowing he cant hit jack from range.

that goes for most of our team to be honest. the defense has no reason not to collapse into the keyway against us.

An atrocious crowd from the images

Hawks were great 36's were whingers, especially Mitch Creek and Adam Gibson . 36's looked like they thought it would be a walk in the park. They tried to get some points in the 3rd quarter by playing like thugs did'nt work.

Crowd looked terrible but hopefully wollongongs performance will make up for that.
Perth can thank Wollongong!

Beach can be an excuse to not get more, but not with it being that low. Last I checked, ticket pricing looked too high and inflexible to me (even with the kids-entry-free promo). Crowd looked very sparse.

Great game if you follow the Hawks though, plus Creek off the leash for a bit too. As I said on Twitter, I don't really care why Creek is benched any more, just let him play. Maybe it's a bit unpredictable, but at least he's entertaining.

No Hawk was particularly brilliant (although Gruber was good and Tiggs was fairly clever), but they all worked well together to put up a big score.

Geez, the crowd looked ordinary on the telecast but 1,840 is quite alarming.

-High ticket prices.
-Terrible scheduling clashes. Aus day, Convoy, Syd to Gong bike ride, NSW touch footy finals etc.
-Team lost fan favorites in Sav, Soup and to a lesser extent Adris.
-Team isn't in the top 4.

Those are the main reasons why people aren't coming. At least 2 of them you can fix for next season, the other two just come with time.

It's clear that Sunday's in Wollongong just do not work! They didn't work 3 seasons ago and they still don't work now. Thursday night would work better than a Sunday afternoon.

Sunday's in summer in Wollongong everyone is out at the beach or doing other things outside. In the 'Gong the NBL needs to stick to Fri, Sat or even Thur nights.

Thursday nights you can have it as a uni night. Uni students get $5-$10 tix. Wollongong has one of Australias biggest UNI's. Clubs know this and every club has UNI nights on Wed nights. Restaurants know this and have UNI specials.

In a perfect world you would have some sort of adviser for the smaller market teams like Cairns, Townsville and Wollongong. Someone or a small group that know the cities inside and out. What works in the larger cities doesn't always work in the smaller ones.

There's also a HUGE untapped market down south in the Shellharbour region. In a perfect world, I'd move the Hawks down that direction anyway. Build a new stadium etc. Shellharbour (population wise) is larger and mostly young families.

However you can't do that. So why not get together with a transport company and Shellharbour workers club or perhaps the new Shellharbour Central Pub and have free Hawks bus/s for Hawks games?

Attendances is an issue for NSW teams in a number of codes. I worked with a lot of guys from NSW and they seemed to have the attitude that they would rather play a sport, surf, or go out on the harbour than watch someone doing it.

A loss can be acceptable in certain circumstances.

But giving up 102 points and losing by 22 is not acceptable.

The loss isn't alarming, but giving up 100 points again is.

Real concerns and our defence of outside shooters has been awful all year especially as most teams don't have big inside scorers but each week we watch open 3 point shots with nobody close let alone in their face.
Our import selection again poor but not as bad as previous years.
Ervin -- Just not a team player and very one dimensional and teams worked him out . Cant see how he can't find DJ ,Petrie and Luke much more as well as give us more outside shots rather than run into brick wall and chuck the ball in panic.
Frye --- simply not good enough as defence over rated and simply can't score . How good would it be to replace with a real shooter.
If don't replace him then give Mitch much more time.
Last reflection is how good it would be if had Gordie as our coach .
By far best coach and has been for a long time.

Bretts the man - while I agree with most fo what you said, Ervin's tendency for solo play was not a problem yesterday. He played 25 minutes and took 9 shots of the team's 71. Compare that to 30 minutes per game taking 14 of the team's 73 shots per game across the season. What else was missing from his game yesterday? 1 assist vs 5 per game across the season. Offensively, the 36ers looked lost after the first quarter, as witnessed by the 10 assists for the game.

The real problem yesterday was playing the team that takes the highest proportion of its shots from outside the 3 point line and hits them 36% of the time, then deciding not to defend them out there. A secondary problem was Wollongong's defensive strategy of doing the same thing to Adelaide, knowing that Adelaide doesn't have an effective outside game.

Interestingly, the team that is second most reliant on its three point shooting is Perth (37% of shots from 3 pt territory and hitting 39%) and the third most reliant on the three is Melbourne (36% of their shots and hitting 34%). Given we'll be playing both of those teams next weekend, any guesses what they'll have taken from the Wollongong game?

Have to agree about Frye. I'd been giving him the benefit of the doubt (the early ankle injury etc.), waiting (and hoping) for him to break out and become a go-to player in offence or become the lock-down defender Adelaide lacks. But he's not done either of those things and it's getting a bit late for that to happen.

The 3 ball is a big issue for us...but also the fact no body rotates when we do run someone off the 3pt line....with the tall timbers there should be rotations & rim protection but there isn't.

A few home truths and a couple of hous video work could really help strighten it out prior to play-offs and could help us.

Perth & Melb can get hot from deep and if we can't adjust we won't win.

(The above said at least we are talking about contending this year!)

Hawks basically had open (open enough, anyway) threes almost whenever they wanted them.

At the other end, the scouting report seemed to be to give them to anyone but Gibbo. Creek was given a long two and a three that he made but they didn't punish enough to force the Hawks away from that strategy.

This was also one of the strongest rebounding teams visiting probably the weakest. Sometimes I think this Adelaide team needs these kicks in the butt - certainly better than needing them every week like the last few years.

as a sixers supporter i am also glad we are a contender and happy we making finals been a while between drinks thats for sure!

didnt watch the game but from a few reports they looked very flat and 'uninterested'

need at least a split this weekend...

As I have said before Isaac if the sixers cant improve their outside game to a credible level we will continue to drop games against quality opposition regardless of their position on the ladder.

As you have pointed out our defense allowed W to do what they liked from three point land and we have to correct that but we must bring our outside game up to standard as well if we are to finish the season strongly.

I put this down to coaching. When the gong went on a tear in the 2nd qtr we should've gone to man. Coenraad, Tigs, Demos all hit wide open 3s because we stuck with zone. Yes if we went man DJ would struggle and they would hit some 2s off of screens and cuts but they wouldn't have pulled away by 26.
I have big concerns with our D, if the Sixers want to win the title or even make the GF they better shoot the lights out. The only Sixers with any D are Gibbo and Creek.

My Social team would score 60 against the 36ers.

Massive missed opportunity, If we won by 20 the Cats mindset would've been totally different. Now we travel to Perth Friday looking at a loss, then hit the Tigers on Sunday looking at another loss as the Tigers didn't play this week so will be waiting for the Sixers with a 2 week break.

Sixers might finish 3rd or 4th now.

This weekend will be very telling for the 6ers.

Very exciting leading into the playoffs with most games being more than just another regular season game.

I can't see us wining either game this weekend tbh.

That will leave us 13-9 along with Melbourne, who will have the advantage head to head with one game to come, each team with 6 games remaining.

Would love for us to grab one win this weekend just to keep our noses ahead. I would prefer it to be against Melbourne - I think Perth have the minor premiership sewn up - but it is always good to beat Perth in Perth.

Understand Peter J your point re shots by Ervin by my main problem with him is he dribbles all other the place then tries to run through brick wall and chucks it away or back out so have to start again and now have key way blocked and no outside shooters.

I thought XY was a Kiwi...?

Here's hoping your predictions are correct XY

Nathan, a quick check of my post history would say otherwise.

Oops.

brett - yes, I also get frustrated watching Ervin dribbling into trouble but I think that's his natural game and comes with the package. It's the flip side of the really good things in his game. I think he brings more good things to the 36ers than bad things.

So, while I get mildly annoyed at some of Ervin's play, I'm really concerned that in the three games we've lost since Christmas, the other teams were allowed to shoot at 44.6% outside the 3 point line. The best 3 point shooter in the league this season isn't even averaging that hit rate and entire teams are getting that against us!

The nett result is that Sydney scored 11 more points from outside the 3 point line than their season average, in both of those games. That accounted for almost all of their winning margins of 12 and 13. Wollongong scored 20 more points from outside the 3 point line and their winning margin was 22.

We don't need to invest effort looking for problems to fix at the offensive end. The real gains are to be made at the other end of the court.

Yep, defending the 3 point line has been a problem all season. What's more alarming is that is what Joey said was a problem before the game on Sunday. If the coach knows about it, it's a bit dissapointing that the players couldn't do anything about it.

Another worrying sign for me is that the players seem to be arguing with each other on the court about the defensive rotations. Saw it in the last home game and the commentator made mention of it during Sundays telecast.

Joey got the job and contract then put one on the plane i am sure team not going to collapse if Frye no longer around ,
It could get us back on track.

I seem to recall the 36ers zone did some good some other games. The hawks really enjoyed it, and the 36ers - you broke a heart that loved you

When Ervin was out, Sixers played their best games with Frye and Anthony showing up and fitting it nicely.... Maybe there is a red herring... Ervin seems to be having words with Joey a lot and others starting to have words too... Cadee just finding his stride and now less minutes, Creek awesome yes, but wins dropping coinciding with Cadee less minutes and Ervin more. Think everyone underestimates despite the shooting issue what Frye brought defensively. Hawks game Ervin looked a little lazy on the D..... Ridiculous attempts through Hawks walls...... I'm going back through the games to see where it's at and then pray it's not down hill from here, but I have a suspicion a mistake has just been made.. It's a coaching and rotation issue.... even DJ was getting frustrated with the team , who by the way I think actually was the best SIXER on Sunday.. Gibbo despite numbers made some awful decisions which resulted in Hawks points.. stats don't capture everything.....