Kings vs Bullets was the only game I didn't watch any part of last weekend. So I'm very keen to get a look at the Kings.

Tip- Illawarra by 10.

Bryson was the leading scorer in the Big West conference as a senior, and the 9th leading scorer as a Junior. He was also 7th in rebounding in Big West as a Senior. Hit a huge volume of threes at 37% over his college career. He played on a successful team too.

He's in his first professional season. Give the kid a chance to figure it out, cos he's obviously got some skills.

LV He sounds very similar to Thornton

Bryson has looked a lot like Thornton, which isn't surprising given the similarities in their college careers. It's a bit of a risk taking rookie scorers as imports, especially from small conferences. Like Thornton he's super athletic, but too slight of frame to finish around the hoop at the moment.

I'll give him another game or two because he shows the odd flash here and there, but it's been his defense that's most troubling to me. Really overplays his man when defending the ball, and completely loses his man when he's on the weakside ball watching.

Whittington looks good to me. Foul trouble hurt him vs the Bullets, but he's a good defender & rebounder that can play a couple of positions which is what we really need right now.

I hope Kings, but expect Hawks by 10-15. Hawks are terrifyingly talented and versatile based on what I saw in the Adelaide game.

"Give the kid a chance to figure it out, cos he's obviously got some skills."

Sounds a bit like Travis Trice too.

Lisch is the main man in the backcourt. Bryson doesn't need to be a star. He needs to learn the system, pick his spots. If he can play solid D and hit his wide open 3's and score 10-12 points a game then he's doing OK.

That could be half his problem though, when you're *THE MAN* on the team for several years in College, it's not always easy adjusting to being a role player in the pros.

I think the Hawks are very strong this season, however, I am picking Kins by a whisker...

Kings

Powell's meant to be playing tonight but regardless can't see them beating the Hawks in Wollongong.

Newley & the big galoot Maric need to stand up.

Trice just played a season of D league averaged 16 points and 6 assists (or there abouts)

Bryson is new to the pros. I expect more from Trice.

Starting to agree with Bryson on the court... He hasn't had one good game through all of pre-season or the first round, that's a decent handful of games really... His shot just isn't dropping and I don't know how long we can persist with a shooter that isn't making shots on such a regular basis... If he was a better defender then it c ould cover for it for longer but he's not even that... had to cringe a lot watching his poor defensive performance last game...

He's a great guy, but it's important to get a good start this season and my money is easily on the Hawks tonight, especially if they play like they did last week... If they put in a similar effor, I think easily by double figures, hopefully no cheeseburgers...

Wookie always speaks wise words.

Bryson needs to step up in the 2 spot so Cadee can be the back up guard.

Kings really need to rebound and bully the Hawks outta their style of game to be a chance.

Hard to not tip the Hawkies in this one.

Bryson has 2 more games to make an impact or his gone IMO, Kings have pumped lots of money into this rebuild of the franchise these cant afford to have a non impact player on the court when there is heaps of good free agents out there especially with lots of players getting waived from NBA training camp rosters!

Bryson's level of effort is certainly better than Thornton's, but he is not a strong defender. I had a look at a scouting report for him and it seems his game is very much based on his shooting ability, so if that's not working for him, it's hard to see how he can be a high level contributor.

I have only seen him in the Bullets game, but so far I'm not sure where/how he really fits into the Kings lineup.

I'm guessing he was bought as a guy who could get some quick points for the Kings when Lisch sits, but I'm not seeing it so far.

(Old scouting report on Bryson:http://www.sportando.com/en/usa/ncaa/186612/ncaa-underground-take-note-for-your-team-in-europe-michael-bryson-ucsb.html)

Bevo has coached 14 straight wins against Sydney! I'm tipping tonight will be 15.

I think Kings will have match-up problems with Ogilvy.

Illawarra by 7.

Maric being penalised on that screen for being bigger than the guy he screened. Stupid.

I swear every time I see Garlepp try defend on the perimeter I sprout another grey hairr.

Got on kings +4.5 and Hawks -2.5 earlier in the week, hoping to hit another middle

Gong looks like they have the softest rims in the league? Already seen so many friendly rolls tonight.

Kings offense looks like trash, but their inbounds plays are really solid.

Anyone else's NBL.tv feed died in the ass?

Butthurt Hawks fans booing Lisch...poor form

Harris looking like The Truth with that herky jerky drive / off-balance jumper

Angus. my nbl tv hasn't worked all game. Tried phone and iPad. Haven't bothered trying laptop.

Tried phone and ipad multiple times I mean

"Stream commencing shortly"

Are the Hawks the greatest offensive and shooting team in the history of basketball?

Better than offensive and shooting team than the 2015/16 Golden State Warriors?

Maric is rubbish....

Kings big men need to hit the boards - can't have Lisch being the only one getting rebounds

Bit disappointing, was looking forward to this game.

Feel bad complaining when it's only 5 a month. On the other hand, I'd happily pay 15 a month like I do for footy, for a product that works perfectly.

Stream seems stable now... Maybe the guy hosting the stream shut down the torrents he was downloading.

AJ in foul trouble already.

Stream working well for me but not game enough to try and plug in the VGA cable to watch it on my TV.

Have Bryson or Holyfield played yet I haven't seen either one yet.

Jeezus Tommy Garlepp, way to both a 4 on 5. Time to give Hill a shot I think.

Bryson missed a couple of threes and Holyfield had some FTs.

Harris has left the game injured. Not sure what happened exactly.

Oh my god. Tommy Garlepp.

Did anyone know that Powell is a 2-time NBA champion? The commentators have mentioned it 21 times already.

Again Tommy misses the wide open guy on the corner.

Childress 2.0- another angry American!

He didn't say a word... lol.. just stared him down.

Good mins from Prewster, he should be a full fledged player, not a dev.

Good mins from Prewster, he should be a full fledged player, not a dev.

Good mins from Prewster, he should be a full fledged player, not a dev.

Nbl tv worked via 'live games', previously I'd been trying 'watch live' to no avail

Powell is looking better than I expected in his first game, will bully smaller defenders and cut to the hoop hard.

@ LV; same here.

Please post your thoughts on Prewster, AngusH

Sounds like the issue resolved tho


Will try desktop next time, cheers

@ Anonymous it was such a wise observation I thought I would make it 3 times.

Powell looks great.

but they won't have room for Khazzouh now. Maybe Maric will sit, bit of a waste

Get Bryson out of there.

Haha angus.

Man Bryson is athletic af but has no smarts in his game.

LOL Maric again....the guy is utter junk

Prewster isn't even a DP the Kings never re-signed him yet he's playing? He's not on their roster.

Maybe 6 years ago you throw that down Maric.

Maric, what a goober

Feed has died again, god damnit.

Stream playing up for me badly in the 4th

Cringe-inducing stuff there. Poor Bo

I'm frozen at 5:17 left in the quarter. Such a shit.

It's died

back now, missed 2.5 mins.

refreshed it working now 2:46 left

Did people miss Bo Liu thinking he was being called into the game and then getting shut down?

Imagine if the Kings win this what were their odds?

Fark me. Two weeks in a row we are missing clutch open layups. Let's sub Gaze in.

That is this league will never be taken seriously word wide...never in my life seen players CONSISTENTLY miss fundamental point blank layups

Sydney showing a real lack of composure here. They should have wrapped this up with Hawks stone cold from 3 pt range.

Bad stream

Bad refs

Bad commentators

STOP MISSING LAYUPS U IDIOTS! AARGH ITS SO AMATEUR.

MARIC WITH A POSITIVE IMPACT!

Odds that Kings get called for a foul here?

Maric all clutch and shit ;)

Newley will probably airball these.

FOUL

Kings deserve to win this can't have the Hawks jagging it.

NEWLEY MADE A LAYUP! NEWLEY MADE A LAYUP!

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Josh Powell has excellent footwork. Is he going to tear the NBL apart? Possibly not. Is he a quality addition that might just get the Kings deep into the playoffs? Absolutely.

Powell was great

Well, there you go, another example of how tight this league will probably continue to be and how hard it is to pick a winner.

Although I tipped the Kings, I wasn't confident, certainly the injury to Norton helped Sydney and probably gave Lisch some more room to move.

Some great play was sadly met by moments of fundamental brain fades on behalf of both teams, not sure what to put it down to, but hope it was just nerves or something as it is only round two.

Best thing here was that Sydney got their first win and every team can bat fairly deep if they get int injury/foul trouble.

Here's to a tight NBL season, congrats to the Kings tonight, let's see if UTD can turn the tables on the 6'ers tomorrow??

Yeah, Powell's touch was real impressive, plus the fact that he seems actually invested when on the court, which is the big fear when you bring in these former NBA guys on the wrong side of 30.

Powell a great addition. Genuine depth in 3, 4 and 5 spots for Sydney.

Ogilvys absence through foul trouble down the stretch really hurt the Hawks. I'm pretty sure he wasn't the one defending Powell when Powell got all his points there.

Thought this was Violet crumbles and Hawks were gonna get it.

6 of 7 games have been alive heading into the final minute. It will be a good season. I'm tipping everyone wins at least 10 games and no one wins 20.

Can it be easy for Maric, coming back to a tough league from Europe at the twilight of his career?

Maybe cut him a little slack until he gets the tempo, then if he is still found wanting, yes maybe too old already, but I would give the guy mid season before passing judgment.

Maric's best skill right now seems to be his passing ability. No idea what he was thinking with that dunk attempt tonight.

In all the games I've watched so far I feel like the refs are blowing faaaaaaar too many foul calls on what should be 'good D' calls and play on. Makes too many players then okay for milking the fouls & I don't like seeing that in our sport.

Hats off to the Kings, that was an effort win there... but seriously, unless Bryson shows something this weekend, he's gotta go or it'll hurt the Kings in the back end of the season.

I noticed quite a few guys just not going directly to the rim. Missing fade away hooks and drifting lay-ups (for want of a better description), not sure if inconsistent officiating has anything to do with this or it is just a bad habit creeping in!

Officials are one topic I'd rather avoid though...

Only because if we are not talking about them we are probably enjoying the games more.

I'd say give Maric a chance. It will take him a while to adapt to a new team, and especially to the different reffing in the NBL. Plus the team around him must learn how to most effectively use his presence.
Just look at Jawai last year.

It will be interesting to see how the league evolves (or not) this season. Last season Perth showed that you can use a big, shuffling, immovable Centre effectively. Are we going to see more of that, or will the NBL's traditionally tough reffing on big men kill the move?

Certainly Perth have gone the other way with McKay.

Refs controlled the tempo through extreme amount of foul calls, and several long stoppages talking with the score bench.

Sucked the atmosphere out of the stadium, and really played in to Kings game plan of slowing it down.

Hawks might have been a chance if they hit free throws.

Maric would be on decent coin (a lot more then the imports).

He is a liability on d, teams just drag him away from the basket with pick n rolls.

He has no touch on offense around the basket.

He did hit 2 key free throws though.

#something

Just quietly, I'm feeling very good about the $3 I had on Marvellous Marvelle for MVP at odds of $46. Also put $3 on Jaron Johnson- both looking like very shrewd bets.

Free throws are generally less of a lottery than threes, you know.

That's the thing about 3s - sometimes they just don't drop. I thought Hawks or Melbourne would win it all last year, and look what happened in the semis.

Harris is a pretty darn good plan B though - just give him the ball, and when he drives it's probably either a basket or a foul 80% of the time. Bryson played pretty good D on that last possession (although his foul on the 3pt shot earlier was what swung momentum the other way in the first place).

Im sure looking forward to a fat open season. The officials have obviously been directed to tighten up on foul calls.
Once players and teams adjust then the grinding unspectacular game as shown in last nights win will open the game right up.

Where are the Hawks fans? The stadium even has one end curtained off to hide empty seats. Sure it was a Thurday night but after the way they played against Adelaide you should expect all Hawks fans would be doing what they can to get to the game.

It's a toss up between Bryson and Tommy for the worst performance through 2 games for the Kings. Bryson at least had the solid chase down block and the final defensive stop, but Tommy repeatedly missed open guys last night on offense, and got scorched on D. I like to think we're in a position this year where we don't overlook missed assignments on D, going under screens when guarding a shooter like Forman, etc. Tommy played too many mins in the 4th Q last night, when I think someone like Prewster is a better bet as he'll keep the ball moving and plays solid D. If Garlepp isn't knocking down his shots, he's a liability.

Moller has been surprisingly good but he wasn't the man for the job last night as we were doing OK on the glass.

Tommy reminds me of Andrew Svaldenis, a better player in a stronger league and era, but relatively speaking, the same type of impact upon his team and the league. .

The league and the era were not stronger when Svaldenis was around. The mere fact that an undersized, under skilled player with zero range played as many minutes as he did is all the proof needed.

My bad w grammar I meant that this era is stronger ie

"Tommy reminds me of Andrew Svaldenis, ( Tommy is) a better player in a stronger league and era, but relatively speaking, the same type of impact upon his team and the league. "

has a few games where he appears to dominate, but basically does not win games.