I'm expecting a high quality game.

Goulding and Holt might torch Sydney's guards like they did in the first two encounters. Warrick is getting better each game, now that he's returned and got fitness back. James for Sydney Struggled against Perth but he has the physical tools to be dangerous, and I expect him to make an impact now that he's over his jet lag and has a couple of training sessions under his belt.

It will be United by under 10 points in a high scoring affair.

Sydney by 2, in OT.

Cadee to tie the score at the end of standard time with a massive 3pt, about a metre beyond the arch.

Why not.

I'm happy for Warrick to keep coming off the bench, but he should be getting 25-26 minutes a game instead of 18-20.

I’d like to see how him and Majok pair up together.

Warrick doesn’t seem to have range outside of about 10 feet (neither does Majok) so this will present a challenge in terms of which offenses they could run, but I’d still like to see them try it.

I doubt his body can handle those minutes right now, I'd say United are using him in a manner that allows him to be playing good ball throughout the season and into the playoffs.

Is an extra 6 or 7 minutes a game really going to make the difference?

It's a 28 game season, maybe 34 (Max) once you include playoffs. He's played almost 600 professional games in his career plus 135 in college. That's over 700 games. 5 times he's played over 75 games in an NBA season, so surely he can handle 25 minutes a game over a 28 game season?

They want to win, yes? Then why not reduce his training load a little in lieu of restricting his minutes on game night?

Melbourne over the past 7 games:

2 wins, 5 losses.

77.4 points for, 86.9 points against

They were being touted as untouchables. At one point they got to about $2.20 for the championship and about $1.90 for the minor premiership. But oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Mirroring Melbourne's fall- and being one of the main reasons for it, has been Todd Blanchfield, who was being labelled an NBA prospect after drilling his old side for 29 points in Melbourne's opener and backing it up with 15 points and 15 boards against Illawarra 2 days later.

He has since faded into irrelevancy, at least at one end of the court, putting up a paltry 5.7ppg over the last 6.

Make no mistake- Melbourne's season is teetering on the edge. 12 games left, only 5 at home, and half of them are against the 3 form teams of the competition- Perth, NZ, and Illawarra- all who dusted Melbourne up in their last respective matchup.

My tip is Melbourne to win by 10 points in a high scoring affair. 90-80 or something like that, with United to be led by Goulding and Holt. Sydney's perimeter D isn't up to the task- for example, Wagstaff torched them last week with umpteen 3's, but that was after they left Beal *wide open* a couple of times. This is a guy who nailed 10 threes and 40 points a couple of days prior.

Let the games begin.

Is Blanchfield gonna play? Him falling on his head from his dunk attempt looked painful to everyone who saw it and then on the big screeen about 3 times.

Tommy going off early. Yikes.

What a start by Garlepp!! 11 points in the first 3 minutes.

Worst thing about this Kings start is the inevitable scoring drought in the 2nd or 3rd Qs.

7/7 shooting start for Tommy. Crazy. If only he brought it on the other end, giving up the open 3 to Holt...

Have commentators explained Kickert?

He's standing at the end of the bench

8/8.

Lower back strain for Kickert.

Kings gonna win this. United look shocking and no Kickert hurts too much.

Never count out whoever the Kings are playing...

Vintage Rhys Carter.

CJ is terrible, did you not learn this in the first week Fox Sports?

To CJ's credit he's about 1000x better tonight than his first game... not sure if he's had another since that first game.

Vintage frantic Kings D, too. Two guys running at the ball handler, leaving the wing open.

Very kind of United to give the Kings a 19point head start. Use to do the same thing to my little brother when were shooting hoops.

Thing about the Kings is that when they go on these hot streaks its not like they are executing great in the halfcourt or anything. Most of the time they are just knocking down their jumpers. As soon as that dries up, it's the same old Kings.

Dammit TAB has finally cracked onto Syd being good starters but horrible elsewhere. Melbourne were still $1.65 favs even when they were down 19

Still skeptical about refs in Melbourne.

P.s. getting boring listening to the commentators basically harp on non-stop about Goulding and Holt etc.

I love Gouldings game but they literally get hype over anything and everything.

I don't know why the fact Cadee is from Bankstown is special/unusual enough to get a mention every Kings game, either.

Did the Earth just flip on its axis and then flip back again?

The United coach looks like an older Matthew McCounaghey!

First time I've seen James shoot a straight up jumper rather than a fade away.

You just know they are going to live up to the Violet Crumbles tag again :/

Am I seeing this right? 76-70 Kings at 3/4 time.

...why did Cadee just walk away from Holt on that 3?

Joe looks like he needs a bandanna and a switchblade.

Shows you that any team or nearly any team in this NBL season can beat another. Kings up in 4th. Is it good or does it mean basketball in this country is a joke?

It means that for stretches the Kings look like the team people expected pre-season.

Majok gets away with a lot of shoves in the back on rebounds. Seen about 3 uncalled today from him.

Kings had doube digits against the Wildcats and the Breakers. Today or tonight they finally did not crack under pressure

Absolutely stoked for Joe and the Kings players.

Thoroughly deserved win. Love Joe's coaching and his overall passion.

Who the hell cares what he is wearing - bloody good on him. Tall poppy syndrome out and about.

Happy for ya Joe!

Wow! United are pathetic. Time for a clean out here. Players poor, coach worse. To score 9 in the last 1/4 & be out scored at home in the 2nd 1/2 44 to 27 is simply not acceptable to a team at the bottom of the ladder. It's an embarrassment to the United players & more the fans that we have to put up with this hopeless basketball yet again this week. A so called professional competition is simply not so. You get better effort & commitment to the game by under 16 & 18 teams. Where to now for United?.

Still not sure what sort of player James is on offense. Great rebounder and looks like a solid overall defender, but I don't think he's post player despite that being what they seem to be running for him.

Sneaky good game from Brandt today too in 18 minutes.

Don't know why the commentators bang on about Goulding. This clown 4/17 from the field. Warrick 6/16, Holt 6/17, Blanchfield 6/16. Overall, 28 of 82, yep 82.. Another hopeless shooting night. More practice boys. The coach should be getting these clowns doing suicides all day at training to prove a point to them. He won't of course because the players don't listen to him any more

Oh god, this classic replay.

I forgot how much I came to hate Sean Lampley this season.

This game showed that Sydney can play out a game. They can overcome a challenge and win a match.

It also provided further confirmation that my comments about Melbourne over the past few weeks have been spot on. They are one dimensional, and don't have any structure to fall back on when the hot shooting streaks dry up. They are in a real battle to keep their spot in the top 4(as I keep saying) but it seems like an irrelevant discussion anyway because based on what United has done in their 17 games (yes. Not just the last 8) they won't even get close to a full strength Perth or NZ.

If Melbourne can channel that shooting from the first 9 games of the season they can beat anyone. Just doesn't seem to be happening, though. Now we're seeing one guy shoot well (Blanchfield tonight), and the others not step up to the mark, where as before everyone was knocking down everything.

Perth led by 36 at one point against the United.No the united are not in the Cats and Breakers eague.

They have to be the two worst coaches in the NBL! No one respects them and they can't coach! Why does everyone think Americans can coach

Who was the bum on the Kings sideline wearing a tee and tracky sacks? That kind of dress passes the sniff test these days?

Angus. I guess Blanchfield shooting 6/16 from the field is good. Bloody hell. Wish I could be that average & be considered a good shooter. 37% I guess is good in a sport where mediocrity is acceptable

You are right about the Unitards being 1 dimensional LV. I said exactly The same thing when discussing the game this morning. The only thing that I thought they had going for them in this game is that the Kings have often been zero dimensional as they were in Q2 tonight.

@ George; consider his season, it does. ;)

He was the guy doing the damage for Melbourne before that 4th Q though, when no one could buy a basket.

@Angus. Good point. You're might mate. It could have been a lot worse for United without him.

I wonder what United's field goal percentage was if you subtract the second quarter?

My guess would be around 25-27%.

Horrible.

DD needs more offensive structure and more cohesive offensive movement. That's been obvious for ages now.

DD also needs to work out why the defense broke down so badly at times. Cadee was hitting shots in the first half, so why was he given 3 open threes in a row in the third quarter?(he hit the first two. The third was from the car park but the half hearted defence effort was not reflective of the fact that we were defending a guy who was torching us. You'd have thought they would've learnt that lesson last Friday....).

Wow, never would have predicted that from the Violet Crumbles.

I went last night - good crowd (lots of kids), close at 3/4 time after a see-sawing lead and every one anticipating a great finish to the game. But it just fizzled out - Kings wanted to win and United relied on CG hitting his shots which never happened and then had no other ideas. Holt showed a bit of spark but once Blanchfield's scoring stopped there was nothing else to keep them going. United needs to make some changes if they are to finish the season creditably - need some offence to get the ball to Warwick in the paint and some energetic perimeter defence. The team needs a shake up - I'd give Odigie a run to change formula if he is fit??

Kickert was injured though? United rely on him a lot.

Worst thing about this Kings start is the inevitable scoring drought in the 2nd or 3rd Qs.

United stink.

Awful awful effort last night.

It's telling that the only time they played well was in the 2nd when the offence was being run by their star SG. For the other 3 qtrs the game plan was to splash 3s. If they don't fall.....you lose.

I loved the dunk by Garlepp with 30 secs to go, no United players at all in the key on defence. It was as if they had given up the fight.

Or maybe they were gifting Garlepp a dunk in his 200th game?

For the other 3 qtrs the game plan was to splash 3s. If they don't fall.....you lose.

It was Brendan Fevola.

Apparently Fev's missus looks about 11 years old

So did Kickert's back flare up in the warmup?

If so, not to make excuses because United was indefensibly bad, but it is difficult to cover for a guy who plays 29 minutes a game without any notice.

I think they said warm up, but he'd felt it coming on since training on Tuesday?

He's one of their more reliable shooters from outside too, isn't he? At least I get that impression whenever I've seen a Unitard game... Combine that with his new found passion for actually going into the paint to score and rebound and yes, very big hole to fill...

Still, with that many other options, it's easier to fill than for some other teams...

UTD were disappointing, but that takes away too much from the performance of the Kings, well done!

I always worry about a team that establishes a perimeter game before its interior game and then finds once others have worked them out and they are off target, they lack a decent plan B.

UTD are still a talented outfit, but the cracks have been exposed...

Wildcats and Breakers seem to be closing their cracks at the right time, again.