Ng all net. Hope its a good game 2night.

7-8 Bullets by 1

5 mins left.

Horvath, Ng 2, Farley 3

Copeland in.

Rychart working the boards well.

I've got a feeling we're getting the win tonight, I reckon the '86 team being there and the fact we've got our backs to the wall and we're desperate for the win, there's a lot at stake and I think we'll rise.

"Farley of old"

Two threes for Farley in just 4 minutes

Adel: 16

Bullets: 14

Horvath 8 points and Farley is hitting the threes with ease

www.abc.net.au/adelaide

than click on the stream

Majstrovich has hit 2 threes!

6 points.

4 threes for the Sixers this quarter, 3:12 left.

SIXERS ARE ON FIRE!

Farley hits another three!

9 for him and Sixers up by 12

Quarter time

29-19 Sixers up

5 threes hit by Sixers

I think Dusty has already surpassed Xztatic's prediction for him lol

Early days yet, but Sam has a habit of dissapearing at the Dome..

43-32 Sixers up.

"Early days yet, but Sam has a habit of dissapearing at the Dome.. "
Just in...

Mackinnon hit a three

I have to admit I am somewhat shocked at the moment.

1 minute left in the half

36ers - 52
Rebounds 35

Bullets - 49
Rebounds 23

Keeping us in the game...
Horvath 15points, 10rebounds is nice!

DEFENCE DEFENCE!!! Oh wish i was there sounds like a awsome game.

Halftime

Adelaide: 56

Bullets: 51

15 Horvath, 13 Farley, 11 Majstrovich

15 Black, 11 Rychart, 9 Bruton

10 boards for both Horvath and Rychart.

DJ, why are you shocked? We were always going to lift for this one with the hype surrounding the 86 team this week, nothing like a bit of nostalga to get the competitive juices flowing.

Interesting that Dusty and Horvath have both racked up double doubles at the half, hopefully the second half brings more of the same.

I never write of the Sixers, however I think I am somewhat realistic ;-)

The team we have I just dont think can lead from the front, I have the feeling and perhaps it comes from Phil's coaching style that we are going to be 'chasing' for most of our games this season, this dosnt mean we wont win our fair share, just am shocked that we are leading the Bullets.

BTW you guys have msn? be alot easier than clogging the boards. Or alternatively the #nbl channel is back up on IRC if your down with that.

just curious DJ what server is it that u guys are on for IRC

DALnet

same old story... not looking for horvath in the 2nd half..

I'm not on MSN and I don't know what IRC is!!

2nd half not loooking good so far, Dusty's tearing it up.

No probs billo - IRC is just a chat style program..

Give the ball to HORVATH!!

update anyone..??

Start of the 4th.

Bullets 83
36ers 73

88-73 Bullets. Dang. I was sure we were going to win this one, good thing I didn't have easy access to betting facilities.

LOL.. Well I am no longer shocked :-( unfortunately

115-93 Bullets win.

Farley 26 points. He is BACK

Did he play D?

Well I was there!
Have not seen the box scores as yet, but I suggest that Nash had 1 point, Copeland none (may be 0 for 9). Now surely anyone has to be joking giving these blokes any time whatsoever.
Needless to say both Dodman and Sutton sat the whole game despite the blowout, at least seeing them would have provided some interest.
The feeling around the place tonight was that there are going to be many people staying away from now on. Pretty sad that, but when one looks at some of the subs Smyth was pulling tonight, it was enough to make you leave the game for good.
Let's hope Boti starts talking some honesty, we have a very poor team, a coach whose day has surely passed and a future for this year which is looking bleaker by the minute. And Boti, and you were touting Nash as the start of the season to be best 6th man in the comp - tell us another joke will you!

at least willie has finally found some form, probably the only positive to come out of tonights game.
also, starting boucher over stephen black or mick hill seemed a wierd decision, especially considering ebi ere can play SF and dillon boucher is only there for defense and he didnt even play on farley, did joey wright just wanna keep mark nash quiet??? lol

xztatik, remember these words?

Re: Rychart vs Horvath! (#100276)

we'll see on friday night, predicted stats:
Horvath - 28pts 12rbs 3ast 2blk
Rychart - 12pts 8rbs 2ast 0blk

DUSTY IS PATHETIC/MONSTA IS BRILLIANT

xztatik, 10/10/06


re: Rychart vs Horvath! (#100324)

make sure u come on this site saturday bballer so we can talk about how dusty got destroyed by horvath, and usually 'mr.reliables' are actually reliable eg. Maher, Horvath.

xztatik, 10/10/06

Rychart tonight scored 21 points and 13 rebounds. I think its time I invited you to me house for dinner, I make a really mean humble pie.

Copeland was awful tonight. During the 3rd quarter I stopped making nasty, quiet comments to my husband about how he should be sitting. I stopped because I honestly felt sorry for him out there.

This is a player who was on a short list of opposition players that I looked foward to watching when their team came to the Dome. That list was pretty much Copeland, Robert Rose, Ricky Grace & D-Mac. These guys I loved watching play so much I hoped they had a blinder against us, but that we still won.

It was sad to watch Copeland play as a shell of his former self.

copeland was aweful tonihgt??? try Copeland has been aweful for the past 3 years!

EC, would you really want to go to xztatik's house?

No I invited him to mine.

I see, I misread your earlier post, this raises the next logical question of whether you would want him in your house!!

No probably not but it would be fun to see him eat a large serving of Humble Pie.

good to see wheeler and cooper playing well, will make a big difference with wheels getting back to full fitness

btw who did nash man up on tonight ?
objectively asking because apart from rebounds his stats dont make great reading the 8rbs and 2ass is not bad but the 1 pt :P

I wasn't there but was the defence sub standard in the last three quarters?

Adelaide limited Brisbane to 19 points in the first quarter. They scored 32 in every other quarter!

36ers had more boards but their shooting percentage is below 40%. They also had more turnovers.

For crying out loud, come to terms with the fact that Nash is useless. How many more posts do I need to put on here for people to realise that! Just check out all the small forwards who have played against us this year and compare their results with those of Nash. Case closed.
And Copeland, well what about that performance. He should sit for the rest of the year and at least give Matt Sutton a chance, believe me, you cannot do any worse and at least he is less than 40 years old!

"Did he play D?"

Farley got quite a few steals and was working alot harder.

squid for some reason i dont give a rats arse about ur comments would rather hear from others at the game , stephon isaac what are thoughts cause at least yours are not personal attacks

nbl box scores has mastro and copeland as the only players with steals abc

This is now getting very personal Thomo. Well ok then' let's be a little constructive. Dodman and Sutton both did well sitting on the bench.

Said this to a few people last night, but I think besides the forum, a good way to determine what the fans think is to set up listeners around the venue. The guys near me looked like veteran basketball fans, probably don't know this forum exists, but weren't fans of Copeland at all. All game they wanted him off the court, out of the team.

You can't cut him, but you CAN put him at the end of the bench and bust him out for a couple of minutes here and there - if he's firing, leave him out; if not, bench him.

Bullets started quite averagely but didn't look at all concerned.

Farley was much better, and was still stuck into the best defense he can muster with a couple of minutes to play. Good stat line from him.

Horvath was getting the ball in the second half but just not converting.

Thought Coops was pretty decent - 9 and 10.

Majstro played well. And Wheeler was better. You know what I want to see? Wheels posting players up Horvath-style - he did in the second half last night and scored - maybe not as quick as Horvath, but is more fluid.

Smyth's tech was at a terrible point in the game - I think we were down 10 and a slim chance of making a game of it.

Everything fell apart from there - Ere had 14 in the last quarter to finish with 21 in 21 minutes. Black had 20 points and 8 assists in 27 minutes. Boucher had 6, 6 and 8 assists in 21 minutes!

The Bullets' defense was stifling. We killed the press on one of the first plays for an easy inside opportunity, but it wasn't that easy for the rest of the game.

At times, the line-up we had out there looked alright: Farley, Horvath, Coops, Majstro, Hill/Ng. At other times, it looked like we had a line-up that would struggle to score: Ng, Copeland, Nash, Wheeler, Cooper.

At other points, we could've used the advantage of bigger players, but ran with a tiny five.

Need to have Majstro out there more. Seems to be one of a few players who looks to drift to the arc and get open while not a lot of the rest are getting open looks.

Alright everyone, I was at the game, and here are my thoughts and impressions... (it's long so I'm warning you now, buckle up).

The first half where we got a lead of up to 12 saw the Sixers play some decent team ball, with agressiveness both offensively and defensively. Again, the ball was dumped into Horvath where he was able to operate, and the rest of the team moved well around him, with good basics like sharp cutting and swinging of the ball. We need to remember though, that Brisbane were flat in this first half and were not playing to their level of play, andit wasn't like it was really our 'incredible' defence that was forcing them to play like that - as we know we saw the Sixers go in at the break up 5.

In a disturbing trend that appears to be developing, the visiting team comes out fired up after half time and get some quick easy buckets while the Sixers are thinking that they are going to hand them the win. They also crank up the D, force a turnover or two, and before you know it, they're up by 6 and the team (36ers) have dropped there heads. All five players on the court displayed body language of 'oh, here we go, they're better than us, let's just give up now because they're going to win and it's too hard to sustain what we did in the first half or adjust to the more intense D'. In these times, we need at least one player to fire up and take charge in which is normally Brett Maher - NEWSFLASH - Brett hasn't played the last two weeks. One would expect Farley to step up in this role (Nash was primarily doing it in the first half - Need to remember that Horvath, Wheeler, Copeland, Mastro are all new and are getting the bulk of the minutes), but what does Farley do when the heat is turned up? Fade away into the shadows because that way he doesn't have to take responsibility when the going gets tough.

For all you people you know just a little bit about the game, when a team plays a full court press, surely your two primary guards (in this case last night it was Ng and Farley) would work out to free themselves of their man and get the inbounds - did Farley do this? NO! He would stand there and expect others to do it and make no effort to assist THE TEAM in this way.

Offensively it was as Phil described, disgusting (as well as defensively during the third quarter. Horvath continued to work hard all night getting good seals in the post, and how pathetic is it when he has a mismatch on CJ Bruton and Farley 'can't' get him the ball? Farley's defender was playing token defence on him, he just need to make a quality pass to him on the block, what does Farley's intelligent play do? Swings the ball to the point and someone chucks up a 3 with the shot clock expiring!

There was a good comeback there in the fourth, where if a shot or two had of gone done, it really would have been game on, but sometimes things just don't fall your way. I still think Brisbane would have had enough to pull out the big plays when needed. Our second halfs have to be rectified immediately, and Brett Maher will no doubt help that - but what happens if het gets injured more?

Alright, here are my player run downs o for the night...

Horvath - Can't get enough of him - works non stop the whole night. Was unlucky not to end up on 30 pts due to some rim outs. Gets awesome seals down low and was a sollid defensive presence.

Wheeler - had a very sollid game stats wise, but also in 'real time' as I like to call it, meaning his contribution was significant. Took the ball hard to the hole, hit an open J or two, challenged many rebounds which turned into heaps of offensive rebounds for us (were just unlucky that almost every putbak rimmed out under intense pressure). He will be huge for us as he continues to find his place on the floor and regain fitness. There were a few communication lapses with him and Horvath however there in the second half which resulted in some of Brisbane's easy buckets.

Cooper - Was solid defensively but needs to have confidence that he can be a threat offensively. Regardless of what people think, if he squares up properly, he's got a more than respectable jumpshot that goes down, but I feel he needs to attack the basket on the block when he has some ooportunities - the guys is close to 7 foot for crying out loud. Hell, if he takes it to the hole, the worst that could happen is he gets fouled, misses his shot, could then gets his own rebound, or someone else does, het gets block etc... Don't just dilly dally with the ball not even attempting to be a threat, because the opposition know this and clamp down on everyone else making it difficult for him to give it off taking valuable time of the 24. Be a threat son! It will change the whole offensive set if he does.

Mastro - now this young fella attacked the rim well last night and finished a few nice shots. Like to shoot the open shot with confidence and hits free throws. From the few games I've seen, he also hits his FT's, and attacks the glass (not sure on his RB stats last night however). He will continue to improve as the season goes on.

Nash - well, on this forum you either love him or hate him - can I be a fence sitter? Some nights I think he is terrible because it looks like someon paid him out and school and his confidence is shattered, whereas other nights it looks like he just asked out the hottest chick at school and she said yes. When he plays agressively in offensive, i.e. shooting the open J when it's there, being an attacking threat etc, then good things usually happen. I think he is versatile defensively and does a good job. People on this forum want to judge his performance on the opposing SF. Let's remembber folks, Nash gets about 20-25 mins court time, Worthington, Saville and Brisbane's pletora of SF/PF all played considerable more minutes. The other thing is, defence is a TEAM game. Most players in the NBL can take there defender one-on-one. From memory, the Kings, Haws and Bullets have all run a considerable amount of high pick and rolls which the Sixers have not countered well (anyone remember someone called Worthington a few weeks back??), so my point is, you can't it all on Nash, only some of it. One on one, I rate him as one of our best defenders.

Hill - OK the guy turned the ball over last night, but I would still rather see someone attack the opposition than all the pathetic dribbling and passing 2m outside the three point line which we have seen in the second half of the last two weeks. Let's face it, he has awesome handles on the ball, can get to the hoop, but clearly needs to improve on some of his decision making and passing. This will come with experience, hell he's only 20 is he not? One week he gets 5 mins, then 10 mins (while having his best game of the season), then 20mins and he off and on the floor more than revolving door. I can somehow see Brad going to another team next year if this continues.

Copeland - I said it to my mate last night, and I'll say it again now, he should be cut immediately and replaced by anyone else, hell, I'll even put on the number 21 singlet! 0/9 says it all for me, is a worse defender than Farley and is a massive liability in the teams overall defense. I can remember that he was directly responsible for at least 10 of Brisbane's points due to poor footwork, gambling, laziness etc. He has shown in our 3 home games that in 20-25 minutes of time he is not providing anything for us and his proving to be a massive liability both defesively and offensively (i.e. shoot a 3 under pressure after 6 seconds into the offensive).

Ng - is suffering from not having Brett there to take the defensive heat and having him get him the ball. Let's face, Ninja doesn't have the strength or experience yet to create his own shot at NBL level (doesn't help that you've been sick all week and a strained quad from last game). Ng deserve more minutes, but needs Farley to recognise that all he has to do his a few hard dribbles to the bucket and a kick out to Ninja and he will be wide open for a 3. Hopefully we'll see more of this when Brett returns, but it was encouraging to see him attack the hoop a bit more last night, but still clearly lacks in confidence at times.

Farley - I've saved him until last, because hopefully this will be his last year with us. Hey, I love the guy and think he is good for the game, but he is a liabbility more times than not. Yes he hits some freaky shots, but he is getting more and more streaky than consistent, and when he does hit a difficult shot, he's running back down court showboating to the crowd while his man busts his ass and gets a fast break layup - that's class! We have also seen over the last couple of weeks how unintelligent he is as a player. Dribbles around like and AND 1 player outside the three point line and does nothing with the ball, gets shut down and has to pick up the dribble and has to pass off. By this time everyone else is out of sync and position due to this selfish play, and the whole offense goes to pot. The guy has skill, if he only he did more of the basic stuff! Defensively - where do I start, I wrote a massive post on this aspect of his game last year, but in short, he continues to be lazy and gamble, two traits you don't one in a player. He constantly gets lost on D, lets his man get free, is horrible in defending on a high pick and roll and is soft going after loose balls. The quicker this season finishes, the quicker we will see a more consistent import who will provide a more overall package for us (I was overseas during the 2002 season, so I can't compare him to that season like everyone else does).

All in all, it could be a very long season, but I hope that it turns out to be mediocre at best, so crowds come in, but that it forces some much needed changes personnel wise. I personally see this years squad as a band-aid solution until bigger changes are made next year, now that the team is privately owned.

I will still go to every game and support the boys and hope for a win and hope for big crowds, but hopefully there will be some changes in how they're playing real soon. That's my more than 2 cents worth on last night... (hope you're still awake!) =)

As far as defending goes, we do not seem to defend as close to an opposition player than other teams and also without arms up. There is much more opportunity for a successful shot/pass when your defender is not in your face and adding pressure and obstructed view.

Although I didn't see last night's game, I must say from the previous 2 weeks our players seem to be making very fundamental mistakes. Like you said Pitstop, not defending with arms up. and some others that I have noticed are:
not showing on an on-ball pick (the defender guarding the screener)
not feeding the post correctly (bad angles, no pass fakes)
not boxing out (although our rebouding last nighht sounded pretty good. with Dusty as their starting centre however they must have been quite out-sized)
not stepping to the ball when you're player makes a pass (I didn't see this once in both games)
no talk on defence (maybe I wasn't close enough)
The responsibility for this surely has to rest on Phil. If he is such a good coach (and I'm saying that he is) he has to recognise these flaws and work on them at training. It doesn't matter what level you play at, if you can't get the fundamentals right you are not going to win games. In footy terms, they are the 1 percenters.

*correction - I'm not saying that Phil is a good coach

Listening to the crowd in my section last night the biggest questions being thrown at the 36ers by the crowd were of the team's lack of toughness and heart.

The second half was some of the softest basketball I can ever remember a 36ers team playing in the last 20 years!

Fair enough the past few years when we were roughed up by teams twice our size but last night it was guys like Black, Hill, Bruton bumping our players out of position, holding guys like Cooper and Nash out of the lane!!

I wouldn't care if I watched a dud team losing with toughness but watching us whinge because Black and Co were pushing us around is just not acceptable.

Watching such a weak, lack of heart performance is annoying. Especially when all I saw was Smyth bitching to the umpires instead of calling a time out and personally questioning the players and asking them how they were allowing non-renowned defensive players like Black, Bruton, etc to dictate the terms.

I have said it the last few years that these soft performances are a reflection of the coaching staff's mentality that we don't need to win and leave it all on the floor every game as evidenced by our tanking of late regular season games under Smyth.

Once again last night we were well and truly out coached.

I wasnt able to make the game last night, and was wondering if there was any improvement shown since the Wollongong game???
Farley seemed to have a good stat line, was he back to his usual best??? (atleast on offence, he has never been a awesome defender), i hope so as im a big fan of his!!
Do you think Mahers return will make the difference needed?? or are we in for a long hard season???
If we dont turn it around i think we should give vets like Copes who probably are not going to be around next year, lesser roles and give the young sa kids like Hill, Ng, Sutton, etc more of a go as they are th future, and it would help us rectify the problem of losing all the good young players to other clubs.
Just a thought is Newley a free agent next year?? (i think he may be??) if so, i think the 6ers should through everything at him, and bring him home to SA, id be prepared to go with 1 import and use the cash on him!!

S-O-F-T

thanks for your comments stephon, squid sorry to take it personal iwas bit drunk in the post, i just think personally attacking players if pretty low sure critisise the shit out of them but draw the line

EC - what's your adress, i wanna come over and show you dusty's stats from 2 weeks back (12pts, 6rbs shooting at 30% from the in the paint), yeeeeeeah thats real reliable.

also, this aint a dusty diss but i'd like to point out that the monsta was bein guarded by the best defensive player in the league in sammymac (my opinion), who kept larry abney to 4 pts and 4rbs last week, horvath had 22 and 11 (without a legit passer at PG) i think thats a hell of an effort even though my earlier predictions may have been a bit off.

No problems Thomo, it is hard though not to get personal when you see such inept performances like this one.

xztatic, 2 weeks ago he was finding his feet in a new team. It was his very first game with the Bullets. No need to show me the stats for that game, I was there. I don't even know why we are referring to this particular game when his games since reflect the real Rychart that Adelaide has known over the last 3 years.

i agree squid but unfortunetly you cant sack a player mid season (or at least thats my understanding of the rules) so imo what needs to happen is like isaac stated copes to the 10 spot everyone else move up, give nash a D job is its working use him if its not throw the ball to a another player, mastro needs another 10+mins per game and hill needs more but i also think he needs to lift his attitude as well,

either way we are stuck with this side for the remainder of the season,

some positives though wheeler looks to be getting back to peak fitness and i thought Coopers had a good input to the game

You can cut him, but you have to pay out his salary. If he's on minimum, then it's not a huge issue, but that's taking it too far IMO.

I believe he still has value and is worth retaining (wouldn't be a bad locker room presence for example), just in a reduced role. If he's firing, awesome (e.g., that Hawks game where he had 15 or something?), if he's not, then keep him on the bench. You don't need him out there for 0/9 FG and 0/2 FT to know that he's having an off night.