According to today's paper Trice is 100% ready to go.

If Trice had bone bruising from his encounter with the parquet in Illawarra, I can't see how he can be 100%. I hope he didn't, and he is.

Go Snakes, we could do with a morale booster after Sunday's schemozzle.

This could be brazen optimism, but I really do have a good feeling about Casper Ware.

United by 7.

United heavy favourites, what is wrong with the bookies.

Cairns offense exactly the type to tear Melbourne's terrible defence to shreds

Goulding in as long as he gets through the warm up, per United twitter.

What about Blanchfield

He won't be back for a few weeks....


.....good thing Barlow's back!

Boom tish.

(Beat you to it, anon army!)

#Makeanonsgreatagain!

Cairns by 10 (sadly)

Looking forward to seeing if there's some good chemistry between Ware and Andersen, could make a big difference for DA.

Let's see how badly DD can use his roster tonight.

Caspar!!!!!!!

Casper the friendly chucker

1) The arrogance of Goulding to put up his hand on the layup to make sure he got credited for the bucket instead of Deng.

2) Loughton is terribly rusty

3) Melbourne getting some nice home cooking

4) Barlow is shit
5) Barlow has always been shit

Not sure who has an uglier jumper

Marion

Noah

Barlow

How you feeling about your bet on the Taipans, Mike?

Cairns tracking at a point a minute here...

Avoided it LV, wanted to see how Ware and Barlow etc fit in

Lol.

United are junk when CG43s off the floor.

LOL Barlow just got one of the blocks of the season, following on from a strong drive to the hoop where he got to the line

But he's "shit"

LOL at internet tryhards

His jumper is still trash doe

The full court press is the most stupid thing i have ever seen..

It is never used in the NBA...absolutely NEVER...yet ALL teams in the NBL live and die by it.

Casper pushing the ball like I wanted

I like him.

We are seeing the diff CG makes too

biggest diff tho is everyone is hustling on D and boards

Casper is full of energy and everyone is feeding off it

@ Mike

yeah, 40% career 3 pt shooter. his jumper is trash? makes sense...said no sensible person, ever

What he did in Europe years ago isn't going to help you now

Sorry LV but Barlow has always been over rated. Case in point: Played for the Boomers years past his use by date.
He is very limited. Has a decent 3 point shot on occasions but that is about it.

Block of the season? I don't think so.

Damn that was some painful-to-watch basketball from the Taipans :/

Enjoying Casper though, despite his ugly jumper.

Barlow shot 47% from 3 in 2014-15, his last season, who said anything about Europe

Why let the facts get in the way of a good story hey?

Give a guy 5 minutes to return from injury and the keyboard Warriors are out in force with their baseless opinions, sheeesh, spare me....

DD drawing up a strategy to fry this 14 point lead.

DD drawing up a strategy to fry this 14 point lead.

I suspect you're taking the bait again LV!

6) Jawai is a beast
7) CG43 has that look about him

Happy to take any bait if United will play like this!

Casper and Chris - they need a name. CC something

CG is the classic confidence player. It was only a matter of time til this game happened, it felt around the corner when he went down

Now you're cooking with CGas

Lol, DD sits CG43 with the red hot hand for the last few minutes and let's Cairns back into it.

Some call an Uber for DD to get on that plane!

Thought it might be interesting if MU got their new guy in. He seems to be doing ok, adding a bit more to the score than Cedric.

Am I reading this score right? Cairns scored 35 points in the 3rd quarter? WTF?

DD booking his own uber!!

Taipans really stepped up the intensity on D in that third and it has translated to more confidence at the other end

Set for a cracking finish

Refs want a MU win..

Definitely did not see this coming at half time

I seriously reckon Dave Andersen tried pulling some moves on one of the refs wives in Rio or something

This has been happening all season

Goulding=MVP!!!

(Of United).

Look at United...this team is absolutely no different to last year...relying on Goulding 3s to win..

As we saw last year in the post season...good luck with that.

Huge call

The illegal screen on Wortho call with a few minutes to go was disgraceful. Weeks nails the three but it doesn't count. At least 9 times out of 10 they don't call that. Why call it now.

Wow

What a game. Goulding put on the best shooting performance in United's 2.5 season history but Cairns just fought on D and came up big in the second half as well. Huge game

Cairns will finish top 4, I've been saying it for a few weeks now. They are very good

This is a game

I think you can put a line through Adelaide and Hawks but all other teams could make the 4

Not really Mike...this team still relies far far too heavily on the 3 ball like last year

Yeah that's tr00

+1

DD couldn't coach a wave at Bells Beach.

man... i wish Trice had been 100% healthy all season... still 4/6 with an away heavy schedule and with Trice's injuries - it could be worse!

We could have a multi million dollar roster and be sitting at the bottom of the ladder... all right all right allllll riiiiiiight

I think Dwayne Russell has dreams about Goulding

How good was the chaos ball call

It's always a contrast in styles whomever United are playing! i.e. barely ordered chaos versus structure. United could definitely do with a bit of the flow and motion offense/structure of Cairns.

(But sometimes DD's "thin" offensive playbook works in United's favour because it gives their players a lot of individual freedom and confidence to shoot it.)

Wow, Goulding back to his best. Gutsy win by MU, but surely they need to learn to play some D?

Goulding has shown (again) that when he's up, he can be a game-winner, but how far can MU & DD ride on his back?

NB: Way to early to start proclaiming Cairns as finalists, certainly not of the back of that.

At the moment, if I had to place a bet, I'd put money on Sydney & Perth, with 4 others fighting over the other two spots. But at this point in the season, anything can still happen.
I wouldn't even write-off MU, yet.

Of you've got a 'thin' offensive playbook, you better be really good defensively. Melbourne are a very ordinary defensive team

^^If*

They keep teams to low shooting percentages (3rd in 2015/16 and this year behind only NZ and Perth) but they don't create a lot of offence from the way they play D, although they are generating a few more turnovers and rebounding a bit better this year than last.

^^ most the buthurt 6ers flogs on here

Goulding's overrated

I don't think Melbourne are a particularly poor defensive team at all. Rebounding can be an issue but if we're purely talking about D, they are decent.

Fearne made a mistake not having Weigh in down the stretch, He is there best low pot option and he was on fire for this game.

I agree LV, they are good at forcing tough shots, but Demopolous' philosophy in press conferences is if you don't grab the d-board you haven't played good D.

They have improved that area though, from last in d-board % in 2015/16 to fifth so far this season. They're pretty much even in the possession game this year, where as last season they were -4 on average.

I'm really trying to like this United team, but still struggling to. It shouldn't be this difficult to like them with a talented creative scorer in Goulding and a smooth operator like Andersen.

Perhaps it's their style of play that bothers me. I'm looking forward to United upgrading coach. Their offensive structure is a bit of a shambles. So much wasted talent. The only positive is at least it let's some of their talent, especially Goulding, free to create for themselves, which can be entertaining when they fire like Goulding did. Otherwise it is frustrating viewing.

Paul They'll probably head back into minus territory now that they've lost Jackson, who is a great rebounder for a guard. This move feels like a return to 2015/16 United a bit

Ware's style is more like Holt, they will be fun to watch now with so much bombing away from outside and being more reliant on the 3 again. And frustrating to watch sometimes too no doubt rjd, just never boring.

Very true re Ware/Holt, perhaps an indication Demopoulos struggled to use Jackson effectively and prefers a shooting PG? Re the possession game, will be interesting to see the impact that has, although a good start being +3 against Cairns.

Rebounding schmebounding. Ware looks like good value when it comes to unlocking United's offence, so I give him the thumbs up.