This is a grand final for these two teams with the prize been the last playoff spot available with Adelaide,Hawks and Perth more than likely secured there spots already.Sydney need Newley back and if he does play could be a bit rusty but his presence will give them a lift.It would be good to see Akil Mitchell play and have a blinder.

All depends on Dillard. If Kings and refs let him play, then it will come down to the Lisch (on way back) v Dillard down the stretch. Kings will be up and if they can repeat their D efforts from earlier in the year then we could be in trouble. Carter has been terrible for us of late so Penney will have to shoulder the shooting load. Loe could a key for us because he is going to be open all the time with Maric watching him.
Should be a douzzeee!!!!

Gazey said in the presser after the previous game that Newls won't be back for the NZ game and is a maybe for the Melbourne game...

NZ have too many options and Kings hearts still aren't in it... NZ by close to double digits, or worse...

Has opened the door for some Moller time :)

Akil Mitchell is an underrated contributor for NZ. He's their energy guy in that second unit. Like a second Mika Vukona

Oh no our leading scorer is TO. Dillard as dropped his head as well. Thankfully Penney is just keeping us in it. Hopefully we can make a run at some stage. Kings playing with confidence and knocking shots down which is making it tough.

Moller time has made a massive difference!

Am I the only one that thinks Ili was a bit hard done by not getting the continuation on the deliberate foul? He anticipated it and shot as he was being fouled from what I saw.

Won't make any difference but I'd like that to be counted, might stop some of the deliberate fouling.

Beattie's contentious umpiring in the middle of it again

"Am I the only one that thinks Ili was a bit hard done by not getting the continuation on the deliberate foul? He anticipated it and shot as he was being fouled from what I saw."

Agree. But not surprising, yet another inconsistently applied ruling all season. There was less continuation on Cotton's 3pt foul on the buzzer PER vs CNS.

Felt Carter's pain. Was clearly fouled. Sure, he shouldn't have gone off like that, especially when they're down by 30, but the ref's need to understand their dumb decisions do affect people.

The Carter meltdown was at the end of a 3-4 minute period when basically every possession had contact that was called for fouls earlier in the Season. It got worse and worse until he lost it.

Paul said in a different thread that the reffing had gone back to previous years, he's right and it's really bad. The League needs to hold a conference call with all officials asap and remind them of how they whistled things at the start of the Season.

Consistency is another argument altogether.

I was actually really happy to see Vaughan Mayberry on the court after the rotation of muppets at ref we've had at our home games lately, but I agree re: the consistency. There was an awful lot of contact around the basket tonight that did not get called that has been getting called all season. I watched both games last night and the way those games were called compared to today was like night and day.

^ not Vaughan Mayberry... he's the other ref I trust. Can't remember the name of the guy that did the game today.

@AngusH, Yeah I don't think Vaughan Mayberry was reffing the game this arvo. I only remember two refs, didn't pay attention to the third one. The ref with the slicked hair is Matthew Beattie and you'd wanna be nice to him if you're an NRMA business member since his day job is head of business motoring at NRMA. :)

The second one was Scott Beker and I haven't seen him this season till that game. He's the one that warned Gaze in the 1st quarter about whinging too much. After Aylen and Mayberry, Beker would've been the next best in the NBL IMO.

Yep, it was Beattie I'm thinking of. Beattie and Mayberry are the only two that I have any confidence in, although not familiar with Beker.

For my money Aylen gets too caught up in the emotion of games, though.

If Carter was feeling THAT hard done by that "no-call" he should skip the WNBL and go back to juniors... that contact was just players contesting the ball and I was happy that they've been leaving that, as it's gotten shocking calling stupid fouls that are just big guys competing, let alone hard to pinpoint to just one person a lot of the time...

He should watch some more Kings home games to see how imports really get screwed over... no reason to react like that, the first tech was spot on, same with the second when he went back at the ref... Someone pointed out on the twitterer that the third was not by the rules as he was already disqualified from the game... Either way, shouldn't have to get dragged off the court over something like that...

Really super pleased with how the Kings played though... They let off a bit at the end of the 2nd quarter, so I was afraid they'd fall back into their old habits, but so many points from solid D tonight, it was like the start of the season... And the D-team for the last 3mins did great to still keep a decent lead...

I've never understood the Jackson recruitment, but after today's game I understand it less