Kings at home should, could, normally would win this one, but how do you pick with confidence this season?

Okay, Kings by 4 points in O/T...


Why? Why not!

Gee, this one is another beauty. Kings need to stop their slide and Breakers seem a little lethargic this year. Breakers are 2 and 6 on the road, Kings 5 and 5 at home. Both teams with plenty of motivation to win.

Will Newley be playing? He could be the key. When he is on the boil the Kings have won easily. Massive matchups around the key will be important. The team that wins the rebounds usually wins.

Cadee is playing his best season and will be slippery. (sorry I heard Marty Clarke call him that once and I assume he was talking about on court) Breakers have have talent too in that area so I'm expecting a 3 point party.

I'm calling a Breakers win if Newley is out. If he's in, I'm still leaning towards the Breakers and I think it'll be 1-2 points in it.

This Paul Carter looks the goods from you tube shots. He's a scorer, can handle it a little, athletic, he's got 3 point range and like all leftie's he's smooth. He looks versatile and can play 2,3 or 4. He's reliable from the line and will become the go to option. He can make something out of nothing which we don't have at present, This will leave Mitchell to pick up the garbage or crumbs, a role he is very good at.
He can pass as well so I expect Penney and Loe to benefit with wide open looks, something he is not getting now. He will get smashed for his troubles but he looks wiry and he played internationally for a bit so I expect he's a pro. He reminded me of a better ball handling Tory Craig. Even if he doesn't live up to that billing he will be a useful addition.
I worry a little about Stockton and his confidence though. Maybe they are waiting on Woodside. The point could be our weakness going forward.

Cadee is doing OK

Cadee had been playing his best season until Blake came into the team. Now he is having inconsistent games compared to what he was doing at the start of the season. It is debatable whether or not it is his best season. I imagine his stats say it is

Is the new Breakers import playing? I'd be concerned only about chemistry for NZ

Cadee was great early, but now ALL the kings horses & all the kings men can't seem to put wins back together again : )

Lisch, Newley & Whittington all seem a bit burnt out.
I haven't looked at minute stats, but purely from observation it seems like the Kings overplay their stars while every other club is more strategic in resting and taking care of their superstars.

I want the Kings to win, but feel like the Breakers may spring an upset.

AC, Paul Carter is playing tonight from reports here in NZ. Should take scoring pressure off Vukona who has been undersized for the last decade and done a good job but he is not going to carry us either. Pledge will take care of business inside and help, but the scoring load will come down to the import and Penney if we are to have a chance esp with Abercrombie out. What ever happened to Tufta . Was that his name? Did he get replaced by Shae Ili. He had speed, was OK from 3 and made an impact off the bench.
Shae and Stockton have really struggled lately.It has put so much pressure on the rest of the team.
Kings without Newley are beatable. We just have to keep the ball away from Lisch and hope he doesn't go crazy on offence.

That's pretty spot on @Anonymous!
Kings guards are susceptible to pull throughs & penetration when Cadee is on D. This breaks down their D & ends up drawing fouls on the bigs.

Is the new kid gonna get time tonight? Doesn't he need like 2 months to learn 'The Shuffle' ? : )

Loving the key board warriors this season! Some people have no idea, loving how close the season is. Kings needs this at home, big factor is newly, you would think Sydney at home.

Sydney needs to be up there for the good of the nbl, both Sydney and Melbourne have to play finals for us to get better corporate and t.v. deals in the future.

All teams have their strengths & weaknesses.

Just like Perth @cats 4 life : )
They need a Damien Martin!

Understand that they need to earn it, both teams had stacked and with the changes to both teams they are still stacked!

As much as I want Perth to be there, it doesn't get boring if you are not a supporter of the team always winning.

P.s don't count out Perth being there again, all depends on the import and damo coming back.

What ever happened to Tufta . Was that his name? Did he get replaced by Shae Ili.

Cadee is the most overrated shit tard I've seen in the nbl in the last 15 years.. he is a paid professional basketball player, who is not really that good at anything consistently on the court.

Defense - woeful. Liability defensively.

Shooting - well his shooting sub 30% this season. So ill mark that down as woeful

Fundamentals- can't shoot off the dribble going right, would have to be the worst player I've seen finishing around the rim- he has missed 3 wide open layups this season alone.

Passing- decent passer off a pick n roll- of give him 6/10. Overall, court vision is SEABL level, at best.

Rebounding- well, he can't rebound.

Can someone remind me again what he is actually good at??? Don't say shoring please, because his shooting overall this season has been woeful- stats suggest he is in bottom 3 of starting guards.

I've said it many times- he is a back up guard at this level, who can provide you 10-12 mins of sub standard basketball.. every 10 games, he will hit 5 3s and everyone gets excited.

Talking about Cadee i don't know who is the bigger sook out of he and Jawai about asking for a foul cause they missed the basket

I just realised how any Breakers are out injured... Kings to win 20+

Surely...

Cadee's shooting under 30% ? WOW.

Wasn't he be compared to Steph Curry at the start of the season? LOL.

Cadee's shooting 37.2% from the field this season and 31.7% on 3pts.

RE: Cadee

As his father was involved with West Sydney/NBL (and probably others at some point?) any chance there's been a few helpful nudges to get him in the league?

Kings was looking good and priming for a blowout and Gaze subbed in Garlepp ahead of Jackson... Tommy need to play defense and rebound otherwise Kings are just going to surrender leads after leads SMH.

Penney still as hungry as ever

Mitchell's FT barely touched the net

21 games now and Gaze's lack of experience as coach is starting to show. His substitution pattern needs to be overhauled to make sure that his best two-way lineup exploiting mismatches has the stamina to end each half if its a close game. He needs to learn from Bevo big time.

Someone needs to tap Rosen on the shoulder, this game would be much better to listen to if it were just Harvey doing colour.

Top 4 commentary predictions

Rosen

Illawarra
Adelaide
Melbourne
Sydney

Champs: Melbourne
Bottom: Brisbane

Harvey

Illawarra
Adelaide
Sydney
Melbourne

Champs: Sydney
Bottom: Brisbane

Carter puts NZB in front.

Delany has made some mistakes.. but that and1 dunk was all effort. Love that guy!

Horrible defence from the Kings

Kirk Penney's 95th 20 point game

Andrew Gaze had 554 20 point games

Illie only got a 5 from the Russian judge :)

Errr Henare's foot was in the court when he's trying to tell Penney not to foul... isn't that a tech?

NZ almost trying to blow this

Just too many boneheaded plays at the end here

Penney
Mitchell
Powell

Well Powell tried to blow it as well :)

Neither team deserves to win this one.

Lets just call it a draw and move on

Terrible but entertaining somehow... its like a contest of who can do it worse...

Now Carter travels

LOL

Kings then daylight

Carter is not very athletic fellas, let's kill that notion eh? He's just long

Breakers spudding their free throws was the difference

Stockton injured?

I didn't see when it happened, but Stockton injured himself 1st Q and didn't return.

Relieved to get the win, but we really didn't deserve that. The first 2-3 mins we ran the best offense we've run all season, and then went completely away from it for the rest of the game.

I actually think Jackson is a real good signing, because he gives us what Moller does (rebounding), with the addition of some pretty good post moves. Having said that, I think Moller might end up being a pretty darn good NBL player at some point.

McDowell-White is supposed to be that defensive guard that may be able to score but he is an unknown and unproven 18 year old prospect. The NBL, particularly this season, is definitely a step up from SEABL, U-19s or Adidas/Nike camps where he is somewhat of a known quantity. He definitely has the talent and physical abilities to be successful in the NBL and beyond, but whether that would transpire during this short stint with the Kings, we will witness that soon I suppose.

T-Ferg is about the only NBL player that he's played against in that World Select vs. US Junior team in the Nike Hoop Summit earlier this year. T-Ferg was the standout while MDW had a mediocre game but that could be due to his team, so its not a reliable gauge.

It's a pity Gaze didn't have the confidence to sub him in tonight, his parents were in the game hoping to see his first NBL game. Gaze did say post-game that the game was too crucial for the Kings and he wanted MDW to have at least 2 practice sessions.

When Lisch goes 1 for 14, the Kings opened the door for another loss at home, but we were not good enough to accept. Lisch did a great job on Carter though.
Stockton was injured because he suddenly realised he had a wide open lay up and had to stretch to get there.
Then going 16 of 30 from the line was embarrassing and committing 20 TO's sealed our fate.
Shea did his best but the ball just dies with him and he always seems to end up with it with the clock running out. Shea having to play the bulk of the game really showed he is a 10-15 minute bench player.When Carter took over at point he needed a high screen to shake Lisch.
Then Carter underestimated Powell when he tried to go to the hoop.
Carter looks good like another great shooter, but he never got the ball and I don't even think we were trying to get him into the game early on.

Championship teams find ways to win ugly. And the Kings did this last night. Any team with a fit and firing Lisch & Newley are gonna be in with a shot when it's money time.

It still baffles me how any professional baller can shoot below 50% from the free throw line, dead set, Mitchell was great, but his FT shooting is simply not to a professional standard. Cost the breakers what shoulda been a well earned resiliant victory.

Penney missed a few free throws as well.

Didn't the breakers shoot like 50% from the line?
Coach killing!!!

Daylight:

A term related to proximity. Think of cricket, where there is a review to see whether a batsman has nicked the ball on a 'caught behind' appeal. When they see the replay you will hear the commentators say, "You can definitely see daylight between bat and ball", which translates to 'there is a noticeable gap between bat and ball'. Apply that to this forum and 'Sydney then daylight' means there is a noticeable gap between Sydney and the rest of the competition (with regard to talent). Of course, lately it has been used sarcastically because Sydney have been poop.