Martin's out with a broken wrist. ;)

Yeah sorry and I forgot to mention that Liam Rush didn't play last game so he may be in some doubt as well - anyone got info on that?

I think Rush is out

Should be a W

Hope we push out to about +20, then Scotty clears the bench

This one *should* be a comfortable win, but is definitely a danger game. Hodges first game back to sync with the team, and are the boys already looking towards the huge South clash at home or will they have their minds on the job!? If they don't put 100% effort in, who knows what might happen.

I think i might do what all devoted Sydney Basketballers do these days, go watch the game live just because I wanna see the opposition play. Even though the stadium is hard to get to and the Sydney Spirit are rubbish in all senses of the word.

Bring back the violet crumbles pleaaaase.

No odds from Centrebet yet.

Spirit with their full squad might be more dangerous, but Adelaide really should have no trouble with this game.

Early odds are out on Tab online. Sixers $1.80, Spirit $2 to win. No margin odds out yet.

The key to beating them once again is to stop their offensive rebounds! They are probably the best in the league in scoring second chances points, mainly due to Khazzouh. He needs to be a priority in defence! Also with Martin out they have no real ball carrier. So the sixers should really pressure the ball carrier the whole game. Also we need to limit our turnovers and watch Jason Smith's 3's! Finally, this team is much better in the second half (won the 3rd quarter by 20 in their last game), so we need to be very switched on in the second half and in particular the 3rd quarter!

If we stick to the basics of stopping them and we play decent offence we should win this.

Rush is out for the next 2 weeks so he won't play.

My bets have a special way of jinxing teams (e.g., goodbye insurance bet on Dragons last night!), but Adelaide at $1.80 is too good to ignore. Wish Centrebet would hurry up with their odds. Depending on the figures, might try hedging bet on 1-10, and more on 11+. Adelaide have no business losing this game if the Spirit are down two starters, on the road or not. Adelaide by 14-18 is my tip.

What are they paying for 11+? No odds at TAB for that - any other places?

Edit: BTW, Adelaide now at $11 for the season with TAB, while the Breakers have closed to $6.

Sporting Bet also being very slow. Im hoping to get a Multibet on the sixers winning the double this weekend.

Hey Isaac mate, any chance you could set up a betting site? I come here for the basketball.

Love your work. : ) : ) : )

Wish I had it as easy.

Isaac I would like to agree with you but the only thing that concerns me is that Spirit beat Blaze by 22 without Rush while Martin had a normal game. Also we don't know how the Sixers will go with Hodge in the team as there is a possibility some players might give him the ball and let him try to do everything. I doubt that would be the case but it is a possibility. Also I would imagine Smith would guard Hodge and he might actually do a good job on him. Having said that I do expect sixers to win!

I also was tipping the Dragons to win due to the fact NZ just beat Crocs. However, it was the wrong call by me as the Dragons weren't very impressive against the Sixers when they had 29 turnovers, they also haven't played hard teams lately, they were on a 8 game winning streak that had to come to an end. Also the way Dragons play opponents by making them run a quick offence is exactly what NZ likes so it played into their hands.

So is Hodge definitely playing??

He said this morning on Triple M he was playing.

Odds are finally up on Sporting Bet, but only for tonight. Im jumping on The sixers to win by 11+ at $4.55

Wish you had what as easy?

: )

Skip, must be some money going on Adelaide. 11+ has dropped from $4.70 to $4.40.

:(

Well, SportingBet have suspended betting on it again.

Edit: The have reopened with Adelaide 11+ dropping from $4.55 to $3.40

Wow Tab has gone down from $1.80 to $1.45 for the win!! It is $2.75 to win by 1-10 and $2.85 (previously $4.70) to win by 11+. Sounds like a lot of money has been placed on this game and/or the bookies have realised they have some key injuries. I was more confident about Winning the NZ game then this actually but still I am confident everyone will be pumped to play excellent.

There was an OzHo poster last season who would talk about putting $4k-level bets on games. Someone doing that with this game would very quickly change the odds.

I stayed away from the game total (200.5) - confident that Adelaide can top it, but the Spirit's scoring has appeared to drop since their run-and-gun start without Smith.

The real bet of the game will be on how many points Julius scores(and offensive rebounds)he obtains. Spirit may not be able to contain us now that we have a player who can take over games . Lets not go for showtime yet(way too many turnovers last game) but we should get a W , but give respect trying to break a ex-Kings envoirment.

We started with
Schenscher
Ballinger
Hodge
Maher
Bruce

Balls off to a great start with 8 points already.

18 points to Balls with still 1 minute to go in the 1st!!

Winitana for 2!!! you know its going to be a good game when he is scoring!

Hodge is all world at missing the first (and sometimes the second and third) shot and getting his own "O" board.

Maher the jumper Nice one

and a 3 for the captain

Our front court now dominating!

where are the live scores?

*sigh* AB... *sigh* My Hero. ;)

http://www.fibalivestats.com/matches/1329/00/37/83/92CdG2UQTzG5o/

Hodge 10 points in a FLASH! WOW

Here they are..

http://linky.com.au/42o8a

appreciate that, is there a way to get that page directly to see all the matches? i see no link from nbl.com.au and if i remove the address down to fibastats or /matches they go nowhere.

Jason Smith 4 fouls already

I found the link on the NBL site. It was a picture which said Live NBL stats or something like that. It wasn't where it usually is.

Thats great news about Jason Smith he would be the only one that could guard Hodge! Great to see the team playing excellent.

HOWEVER, Spirit usually play much better in the second half of games so we really need to keep playing great D and keep scoring!

good signs, but really only down 12 the spirit are doing pretty good with who they have. I do like the fact that bruce, holmes, and davidson have not done much damage on the scoreboard yet we still have this position.

cant see the link with firefox

Yeah we must make sure we don't have spectators on the court that are just watching the Hodge and Ballinger show. We need everyone involved! Come on Jacob bigger second half from you!

same, that site is garbage. How hard is it to have a dedicated spot on the page that everyone knows where to go, or if its a browser issue make sure you are cross browser compatible.

The link is right there on NBL on the home page. "Live Stats Click Here." It's easy to see.

http://linky.com.au/08kox

Kingjames, I agree totally! But anyone who knows Jacob, will know he will have absolutley cracked the big one that he is coming off the bench! Hopefully he can put the team before himself though and fit into his role which suits the teams makeup much better IMO!

maybe on a pc i'm on a mac, that link go nowhere for me.

Was late getting onto the betting for this one. Took Sixers 11+ @ $3.85.

Was tempted by Ballinger to score more threes than Low paying $2.80 but best to wait and see how Hodge impacts the plays... At the half their tied at 3 each so maybe a good move to stay away from that one.

Oh Bugga!!! Don't know what happened there.
I'm using Internet Explorer and just go to
http://www.nbl.com.au

Then click on the link on the NBL site and it goes to another page with Sydney V Adelaide with "live now" in red, then click on that

oh well, as long as the team wins! nice start to the 3rd.

And who said balls' numbers would slide with Julius in the team? 25 for balls 9:32 remaining in the 3rd and 17pnts an 11 freaking boards for Julius!!!!

For the livescore link (Firefox).
To the right of the scrolling main pic on the NBL home page, is a pale blue rectangular box with "NBL LIVE SCORES - CLICK HERE".

Hodge draws attention away from Balls...and AB is brilliant at getting to a good spot to get the ball... *sigh* Perfect!!

1st double double for hodge

Thanks DDFan...just what I meant to say...Cheers!

only slight issue is they are dominating the shot attempts but i guess they are riding the hot hand and its working.

Hodge been on court the longest.. Jetlag! Schmetlag!

Looks like Hodge is taking the heat off AB to rebound so that's letting him get clear for a pass then shot.. Maybe?

look at the shooting percentage of balls 12/16 not bad at all.

KingJames....spot on!

solved the live score, dont know why but i just dont have it on firefox, launched it in safari and its there. I have adblock insalled maybe that has blocked it.

Schensh now has a double/double too

C'mon Jacob...you wanna improve those stats just a bit...Please? You can do it. I've seen you...

Spirit cut sixers lead to just 5 points, (74-79). Sixers need to steady.

Hodge is great,
but he cannot shoot it like Ballinger.

*SHeesh* Coops has had 2 shots...YES!!! 2 shots and got them both in. YAY Coops....

Ahhhh guys bad 3rd quarter!!! I told them not to relax! :P

We need everyone to step up in this quarter and not leave it to Hodge and Ballinger!

All lot of 36ers having the shooting yips tonight, and we still lead, so good signs.

Cannot underestimate the Spirits defence.

Rats...Coops missed one...now he'll stop taking shots again...

Hodge and Balls were out for much of the last 5 minutes, so let's hope that they both come out firing in the fourth.

"And who said balls' numbers would slide with Julius in the team?"

Who did say that? lol Jules loves feeding it to big balls.

So Ballinger and Hodge have 29 and 18 respectively, and we're only up by 6. wtf are the other guys doing?

they need to spread the shooting load, get brett some shots so they have to respect him and then go back inside to luke or someone.

Xztatik their all Balls watchin

Cmon boys step up!

Im putting it out to Winitana right now to do something that will make me believe he was worth signing

Agreed Jesus. Does anyone else get the feeling we are going to get run down here in the final minutes?

I think so mutley :(

why is Luke out?

ok i get it, short spell and now he's back

Been out, quickly can someone give me a rundown


im watching fiba live stats so i no scores etc.

thats it, we lost. im tearin up my season ticket

and a link please. surmdogs?

tied at 101 under 3 to go

Its gonna be close but i know we can do it

Luke has had a quitely good game 16 and 17 with 4 assists sprinkled in

36ers suck

Sixers loose by 2. 110-108. Inexcusable loss.

Sixers cannot win with only 3 or four players putting in. season defining loss to the spirit

You suck clitoris you dont deserve to have those tickets in the first place!

Rats! Good effort anyway. It was very close.

Why did bruce have the ball with no time left! Jacobs game....please explain??

Very tough loss, lets see how they react tomorrow night though, could spark them into something very special from here. The D was the issue, and thats easily fixed for this team.

Absolute crap! I cannot believe that this keeps happening every time we are expected to win games.

Had a chance to win it in the dying seconds but Bruce turned it over again :(
Shouldnt Davo be in at such a crucial stage in the game?

Samba, if it was easily fixed, it would have been by now.

Great line by Luke, 16/18/4/4

Bruce 4 turnovers in less than half a game is not good for your No1. point man.

8 offensive rebounds against the 6ers cost them dearly in the last quarter, probably made the difference

maybe Hodge tried too hard to do it all himself so the others didn't have the same opportunities they have been used to?

We can only hope Samba. Either we will bounce back strong but more than likely this is just the mediocore season we have come to expect the past few years. Really disappointing loss :'(

DAMMIT!

Wayyy too many passengers tonight. That should not happen when Schensch/Balls/Hodge go for over 60&30 together.

This is the biggest rollercoaster ride i've ever been on. I think i'm going to have a nervous breakdown before this season ends. We get the biggest highs (beating NZ in NZ) then as quickly as we are up we go down again and i feel as if i'm white knuckling it all the way.

Rookie im not sure how many Rollercoasters you've been on but there is usually more than one high.

I know what you mean though im not sure if im excited for tommorow nights game or dreading it.

I'm looking forward to it. I think they'll be out for blood 'cos they'll be really pissed off that they lost tonight.

NO EVERYONE GET EXCITED FOR TOMORROW NIGHT! We havent had a decent team all season, as far as im concerned the season started tonight, and ok we are 0-1, but with 17 left, and the next 4 at home, i love our chances of getting on a great roll and clicking on all cylinders. This will not be 'just another mediocre season', what happened tonight was a gigantic upset, that happens in sport, but IMO i find it hard to comapare this team to the 5-7 team we had just a week ago. It'll come together...

joshuapending:

" solved the live score, dont know why but i just dont have it on firefox, launched it in safari and its there. I have adblock insalled maybe that has blocked it"

You may have been unlucky trying to crack into the live-scores while their net traffic was high. Did it attempt to bring up the link & kept timing out, or didn't the link work at all?

In Thunderbird, Adblock will ask for permission to allow a link via the orange drop down bar if it hasn't been given passage before.

uoyh

That is a very poor effort by the Sixers to lose that. We were in a commanding lead at half time and should have came out fired up in the 3rd quarter to play tight defence! The team should have been well aware that spirit have huge second halves!

All we had to do was stop Khazzouh's offensive rebounds he came out and got 9 of them!! Ballinger why 2 rebounds in 38 minutes?

Also why are we allowing Jason Smith, and Derrick Low to hit 9/17 3's? That was probably there only offensive threat and it killed us! We got the bigs inside to defend so there is no excuse for them killing us with 3's!! Bruce it is not college bball people can actually hit 3's here! Start guarding them outside!!

We should start Jacob if he is going to cry and come on and give us nothing!

Ballinger why 23 points at half time and only 29 at the end of the game!! Stop going into your shell! We need you to keep shooting!!

Winitana should not have been used in that last quarter! Instead his minutes should have gone to Jacob. Why give Winitana 3 minutes and then give Jacob just 2 minutes. Play Jacob for all those 5 minutes instead at least thats the only way Jacob will be productive when he has some consistent minutes together. On the other hand, Winitana is giving us nothing. Until we are up by 20 don't even play him! Run with 9 guys who will then get more consist minutes so that they can be productive.

Spirit had two of their starters out so to lose that is very inexcusable and can be seen as a pathetic result!!

You need to stop the other team scoring to win.
Thats a serious bitch slap Scotty.

How many minutes did Hill play?

Didn't think Holmes would start tonite, but probably start tomorrow, with Brett unable.
If he's gonna sook out and lose the game for us...
19mins 4points.. very disappointing.

i agree king james, dont play winitana unless were up 20 or carrying injuries. find an 8 man rotation and stick with them guys, that may mean no playing time for hill, winitana, and ezy but so be it.

my starters and 8 man rotation

c luke
pf balls
sf hodge
sg maher
pg bruce

holmes
davidson
cooper (only limited mins)

sorry
hill
winitana

Maher unlikely to be able to back up

Not sure that you can pin-point the Spirit's 3 point barrage as what brought us down, they had 30 attempts. Our 3 point shooting was lethal, so encouraging there.
To me, Gruber was the one that slipped under the radar & did the damage inside. Their other high scorers are expected to get their numbers. Him, not so. That's something that wouldn't have been anticipatedan, & we obviously didn't take him seriously enough.

Very dissapointing effort by the 36ers but once again you cant underestimate the Spirit. They are a nice young team but still poor crowd numbers Sydney basketball is shot.

I don't normally enter into player positions & court time discussions, but if Brett's out tomorrow night, & taking into account the back to back game schedule. I'd leave Hill in there, & bring Eze into the 10.
Radical maybe, but he's fresh, plays smart, & knows Jules' game.

Ray Hunt was reffing

Isn't that rhyming slang for something starting with useless?

I was at the game tonight Julius Hodge got a bit fired up at the crowd if you can call it a crowd more like a group, Hodge was yelling at the crowd and flexing his muscles at stages.

Might have been a comfortable half time lead. And, they put the foot down in the second half, and we didn't do enough. And, Holmes not contributing.

really bad loss, we just cant let this happen over and over. Like i said before i still think it was the spread of shots, you cant have 2 guys taking all the shots you need to spread the pressure. I undertand hodge would have been trying to make a statement and he got good numbers but some of the shot attempts needed to go to some of the others. Really looking forward to the dragons games but this kind of loss is really deflating as a fan and i'm sure as a player as well.

Yes. Your right and the coach.
Sick of losing away games

"find an 8 man rotation and stick with them guys, that may mean no playing time for hill, winitana, and ezy but so be it."

Nah, Hill deserves minutes, he was great against GCB and is averaging about 7ppg in low minutes - he's been a good contributor, removing him from the rotation would only mean more injuries as the workload for the rest of our backcourt increases.

How about Ballinger 18 points after first quarter just 11 in last three i hate when players take less shots when there on fire. If Kobe Bryant or Lebron James had 18 after 1st quarter the wouldn't stop shooting.

Good to hear Ninnis not make any excuses about the teams performance and tell it how it is.

"I'm getting bloody sick and tired of coming into these press conferences after a loss on the road," Ninnis said.

"I think there was an expectation once we got that lead that we were just going to go on and win the game and we spoke pretty heavily about this (Spirit) team being able to come back from 20 (points) down."

"We got to a point where we scored on them pretty easily at the start of the third quarter and I think we switched off and our defence & became as bad as it's been in the games we've lost this year."

Spirit shot 5/7 3's in the last quarter (we got 4/5) but they got 7 Offensive rebounds to our 1!

It should have been drilled into them at 3 quarter time. Dry up their offence!!! Box them out, NO offensive rebounds!! Do not let them have open 3's!!!

Ballinger 1 shot in the last quarter!!! NOT good enough!!

Last quarter. Scottie 3 time-outs, Bevo none. Thoughts?

xztatic - did you see the box score of what hill contributed tonight? 13 minutes for 3 points on 1/5 shooting, 3 boards 3 assist but 3 turnovers. I like brad hill think he has potential, but with 6 legitamate scoring threats in the side were better off giving minutes elsewhere. aaron bruce only played 23 minutes and jocob only 20. i like what mike d'antoni did with the suns, use 8 guys have themall get good minutes and a good flow of the game. Its bretts last season hill will get his chance next year. He just needs to be more consistent to warrant taking pt away from jacob. jacod and aaron should be playing more than 20 and 23 mins respectively.

Maybe he could see they switched off.
Maybe tried to fire them up ?

Scottie's 3 time outs, I was refering to last post.

Re box scores. Holmes is the worst.

but holmes is proven. had a rare off night i agree. id play holmes 33 mins anyday rather than give hill 13.

Normally you would. Yes.
Tonite, well if he didn't put in 'cause he wanted to start ?

Not having Poxtel, I'm in the dark about Scottie's time-outs, does be give direction when we stagnate, or just bark?

We have all been complaining about SOJ's production but how about this:

Winitana 17 minutes per game... 2ppg @ 30%, 2rpg, 1apg, 1topg.

I don't care if this guy is killing everyone at training, if he doesn't have the confidence to do it at game time he shouldn't be out there!

Cooper and Winitana combine on average for:
32 minutes Per game
5 points
5 rebounds
2 assist
1 block

We can't have 4 on 5 on offence!

Play Winitana if we are up by 20.

When Schensher goes to the bench move Ballinger into center. Extra minutes to go to Hill. Cooper can play 5-10 minutes when required (if his not required then no minutes).

vanexel- I do like 8man rotations but not on a team that is clearly not fully fit at the moment, especially in the backcourt.

Hill brings something different when on the court, he attacks the rim while Maher/Davidson and sometimes Bruce just camp out on the perimetre. Plus his D is improving rapidly imo.

I'm not saying he should be a starter (which someone did say yesterday) but he has certainly shown enough to warrant 10-15 mins a game.

At the moment, KingJames, your right.
Would have to agree, on their present form.

yeah our back court is unhealthy i agree, but hodge can both guard spots giving us bruce maher hodge and davo. but i agree, id keep hill in the back court, hodge at forward and cut coopers minutes. cooper and hill i believe to be inconsistent, but hill has proven to be more valuable than cooper. but in saying that we'll need balls to sub for luke at centre meaning we cant have both on the coart for an extended period of time. i think depending on who we play as to who gets th 8th man mins, hill or cooper.

Yeah. Pretty good.vanexel31
(Hill was bad tonite, but can give more than that)

I just got home from a basketball presentation tonight and I am very drunk!! but all I can say is that this was an absolute disgrace from 36ers tonight!!! beyond comprehension!. If we are going to rely on two imports to get us into the finals this season, we have no hope at all. When will Maher finally stand up! I am sick of all you guys on this site relying on the imports to win us games, for crying out loud the Dragons only play 2 imports on average 30 mins combined! Get a grip people, this is not acceptable!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dragons by 21-33 tomorrow, at least the have aussies who know how to win.

Just got home to check the box. Thanks Bizzy for the score text. If you told me that Hodge had 26, Ballinger similar and Luke a quality double, and that we had 50+ boards, I would assume we won. Quite surprised at the result - must stay confident and/or angry for tomorrow!

Have only seen the timeouts from the foxtel Dragons vs Sixers game (that was woeful). Scotties timeouts than were pretty bad, but than we were getting smacked all over the court. Still felt he needed more direct comments and to be a bit more harsh. But that could have been an exception as that game was done and dusted early and the players lacked any motivation to try and get back into it.

DJ:

"Have only seen the timeouts from the foxtel Dragons vs Sixers game"
Ooops, I forgot Poxtel've only just started showing games.

"(that was woeful). Scotties timeouts than were pretty bad, but than we were getting smacked all over the court. Still felt he needed more direct comments and to be a bit more harsh"

Thanks DJ, sounds like Scottie's got a bit of work to do on his time-outs. I'm not sure of the morale of the crew, but if Scottie's losing it in his time-outs, he may not be setting the scene for a team turn-around. Obviously I'm making an uninformed generalisation, but maybe clear, concise directions, & a bit of ego stroking might be the way to go.

Seems to me we slowed down in the last quarter because we had Julius, Balls, Schensh and anyone else who was a scoring threat in foul trouble. And we had 5 team fouls early in the 4th.

How hard is it to have a dedicated spot on the page that everyone knows where to go, or if its a browser issue make sure you are cross browser compatible.