Hawks got this.

If Randle doesn't shoot the lights out, Sixers haven't an avenue to score.

36ers bounce back and get this one, like alot of teams they are a different beast at home. And no Penney out still hurts the Hawks with there care free let it fly attitude.

Sixers to win at home with 7000 behind the team

I love that all games are still competitive, love the tight run to the finals and love that no one is safe at home court too!

Fourth place
Fourth place
Fourth place

'Let's get tropical'

Would be a hell of a statement from Illawarra to win this in Adelaide without Penney. It looks like the Powerhouse is rocking again like old times when I lived over there though, and when that's the case the 36ers start favourites every time!

Fourth place, thats gold! Hope for 6ers win, but more i sit on it, its all set up for a massive Hawks statement game.

Yep, pressure on Adelaide here, and that's where you find out what teams are made of. A loss and all of sudden NZ and even Cairns are back in the picture with two huge games coming up next week.

When's the captain back?

How did Bear not get more love for that fourth place comment haha, that was gold. ¨I tried to pretend that it didn´t matter if we won fourth or not, truth is I´ve never wanted anything more in my whole... life.¨ On a serious note, despite being a Hawks fan I think the 36ers get this one. 36ers always tough at home, especially with a playoff spot on the line and Martin, Lisch and Ogilvy will have to come up big time to snatch the W.

Oops, didn't expect it to be so big lol

I think that's two sell-outs and two near sell-outs in the past four games, is that right? Bball in Adelaide is on fire once again, great to see.

Hopefully not many tickets were given away or discounted because the 36ers need all the $$$ they can get to pay Randle next year

A sell out! Can't get a bigger crowd than that

Randle doing damage with the pass tonight.

Is this the same Ere we saw earlier in the season?

It's about 80% of that Ebi. ;)

#foulball

That quarter took forever.

Sheesh, hard foul by AJ there on Randle.

Oh man, Randle looks in a world of pain. AJ's foul didn't look so bad on the replay. Maybe a broken ankle judging by Randle's facial expression. :(

Sadly that's an ACL for sure :(

Our season just ended. Don't mind me, going to go cry in a corner now. F*ck this.

Yeah, ACL is unfortunately likely. Definitely not a hyper-extension from what you see on the replay, which would have been 'best case'.

Paul George injury aside, there are probably few more painful basketball injuries than knee injuries...

Well, it's a good thing Ere has started firing...

No way you can call AJ's a hard foul, Randle caused the contact by changing his path. Just bad luck for him, no good seeing quality players out.

Yeah as I said, it wasn't a hard foul on the replay. At game speed it looked to me like AJ swung his arm at Randle and caused him to crumple like he did, rather than the knee injury.

With all the whistles and blood cleanups, I don't know if this broadcast is ever going to end.

ooooooooooooooooooo aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Ebiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Ereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

That's the kings and the bullets ere version

Ebi lol. Joey stuck thick with this guy and we starting to see why!.

Crazy how different the Hawks play on the road vs @ home.

Ebi Ere. Jeeezus.

Randle on his feet on the bench cheering, great to see.

Next weeks game v the breakers is going to be massive for both teams.

what happen Bevo we should have won this.

I hate that foul by Ogilvy. Not malicious but unnecessary and deliberately hard imo. There was no way he stops that break and he had a lot of other options rather than take a huge swipe while bodying Randle. The Hawks were obviously intent on being physical with Randle in this 2-game set and now you'd have to say he's done. Fingers crossed he's not, it'd be tragic if he is.

It's always good to see Bevo dirty ball lose the game. I have no respect for coaches that instruct their players to play cheap shots all game. He did it Perth, then we had a cleaned up season because no Bevo in the league. He is back and so is his bullshit brand of mug ball..

Hopefully we come 4th. We will match up with Melbourne better for the win. Perth and Hawks will beat crap out of each other and will definitely be a few players down after they go at it for 3games.

Good to see the team battle on with Randle on the sidelines. He doesn't need court time to add influence on our teams game. When the little guy has been doing most of the work, it's easy for the bigger guys to step up when needed.

According to Randle's agent, it's probably not an ACL. Need to wait for scans tomorrow to find out more.

Massive game tonight by both teams. Fans got their money's worth.

HUGE questions asked of the Sixers when "The Handle" went down, and they answered those questions well.

Sixers now 2-1 in the series and Hawks need to win by 20 to get the split.

Certainly the Cats and United would be watching the game tonight and their strategy coaches would be dissecting this game as we write.

The season looks like the final 4 won't be decided until the very, very last game.

That injury is just so deflating. Just when Ebi is hitting his straps and now this. If its ACL you can't sign him for next year either. So sad

That was good to watch the umpires get out there tonight and have a run around. Didn't even notice there was a basketball game being played!

36ers +/- for tonight for those interested..

Walker +19
Johnson +16
Ere +15
Gibson +9
Teys +8
Creek +6
Randle +3
Petrie -1
Sobey -5
Hodgson DNP

On the money Doug.

Hodgson needs some minutes in the next 2 weeks. Imagine playing finals with OT. We will be having 80 free throw games, so the young fella is going to be on the floor anyway

Great game tonight, ex strategy from Joey keeping Randle cool in the first half with only 4 points but 9 assists.
I thought he would absolutely break out in the second half and he probably would have but some crude Bevo defense took him out and nearly cost us that strategy and maybe the game, even the season.

Credit to the sixers depth with Eri asensational 28pts, and big contribution from all. Creek with 15 pts, 9 rebounds and 5 steals was great

There was about four minutes in that last quarter that was the best basketball I have seen in a long while. I'm still buzzing.

Can't wait to see the replay tomorrow afternoon.

Fingers crossed Randle is not too serious.

Go Sixers

Hawks losing the split and finishing 4th is the desired outcome at this stage IMO. Hawks have been demolished by Perth and Melbourne is the much better match-up.

Randle injured may have given NZ a life line...Dammit.

I really, really, really hope it's not an ACL. Randle at the 36ers next season would be huge in so many ways both oncourt and offcourt and it's good to have a face of the franchise like that and with some continuity.

It would be bloody sad if Randle's out, he's been one of the stories of the season. It would also mean a huge adjustment for Adelaide, I don't think any other guard in the league is as ball dominant. As someone said earlier, if Randle's out you'd think it would breath some life into NZ this Weds.

That was not dirty by AJ.

For those who saying AJ was dirty, watch it again as i said Randle changing his path and causes the contact, no way AJ can be blamed for that. Hope Randle if injured is only missing for two weeks :)

Great win by the 36ers. With Randle out for the night and being so close at 3 quarter time I didn't think they'd have any match for Illawarra's firepower. Ere was huge in the 4th, and really paced them for the whole game offensively. The Mitch and Waxy double act was working as it should and DJ finally pulled his finger out toward the end. Also nice that Gibbo looked like he was putting in a bit of an effort. There's no doubt that Illawarra's plan was to bring the aggression and to target Randle but you can't argue they go out to hurt blokes. It's a big blow for the team and for the league if Randle's out for the season and the next (making an assumption he was considering coming back again).

Hawks game plan to disrupt Randle with physicality.

Statements by players and coaches before the game, we have to get stuck into Randle.

He leaves the game injured, WOW NBL, you going to act on that.

AJ's foul on Randle wasn't a stand out mugging but he was riding him on the run which is very dangerous. He never made an effort to get in guarding position because he wasn't fast enough so settled for trying to ride him from his path to the ring. At fast break speed, very dangerous. Given Bevo's open instruction the incident and the umpiring control on the game deserves review. Particularly since they will do it again next game and having seen this game and the one thursday night so will Perth and Melbourne!

Great emphatic response from our boys tho.

Nothing to act on, was a mis step. And it didn't work anyways, he had a heap of assists before the injury. If he had left with a black eye and bloodied lip perhaps but this was a sad freak accident. NBL needs to act on the refs

^ This.

Just watched the replay, and while the reffing wasn't brilliant, the main reason a lot of fouls were called in the first half was the players fouled a lot.

Re the Randle injury, he cut into the line Ogilvy was running and initiated the contact to draw a foul. He then rolled his ankle which seemed to result in the knee hyperextending.

Yeah don't think there was any malice or ill intent from Ogilvy, bit surprise it was even raised tbh. Just a sad event that we are all crossing our fingers for that its not as bad as what it might first seem.

"Paul don't know what you were watching"

A game where the players fouled a lot. A couple of weeks back in Townsville the refs did a really poor job, calling foul after foul and being far too soft.

I don't think that was the case last night. The refs were calling fouls and the players just kept pushing the limits. There were definitely a few howlers, but the vast majority of fouls were there. Smart players adjust.

I'm hearing the Randle injury might not be serious at all and he might only miss one game, if any at all. Official line is MRI tomorrow but word is the club is confident is was a hyper-extension and no real damage aside from that.

Fingers crossed that's the case.

He went down like he was shot the other game too and was alright. Hopefully he's either a fast healer or a dramatic actor!

Little bit from column A, little bit from column B I reckon ;)

I'm pretty sure the injury he had in Thursday's game was in exactly the same spot as last night, so probably still a little tender. I must admit, I sit in that corner and got a good view of it and I didn't see anything that looked like the usual ACL buckle. So I'm hopeful, given what some have said above, that it is only a relatively minor injury.

Was hoping for something that Beantown can appreciate and that was a Paul Pierce style recovery. Honestly I just have my fingers crossed but can't help but be pessimistic.

Saw the replay today, definitely got a knock to the side of the knee, so you could probably hope it's nothing more than a strained medial or lateral ligament. Whilst not an expert, in my experience the obvious presence of ongoing pain is actually a good sign, because most people I know who have totally blown out a knee haven't experienced any pain other than in the moments surrounding the initial injury. I do worry though that if he does somehow make it back, how the injury will effect his confidence to move freely like he does. You can't have any doubt in your body's ability to hold up playing the game Jerome does.

"The refs were calling fouls and the players just kept pushing the limits. There were definitely a few howlers, but the vast majority of fouls were there. Smart players adjust."

I agree wholeheartedly. I was at the game. I thought the refs did as well as anyone would have with a game played the way the two teams chose to play. There were mystery calls but that's to be expected when players are grabbing and pushing each other simultaneously. My favourite was when Gibson owned up to the foul (stuck his hand up when the whistle went) only to see the foul given to the Illawarra player. Not a reffing error, just a reflection of both players doing the wrong thing and the ref tossing the coin to decide whom to punish.

And for those berating Illawarra's rough play, the 36ers clearly came out with the same intent. They got 5 of the first 7 fouls and they were fouls that were about setting a tone.

Nonetheless, the quality of basketball skills, coaching and execution by the teams outweighed the crude thuggery and it was a great game to watch.