#2 - PERTH WILDCATS (18-9, 104.5%)

Remaining fixture: vs Adelaide (Saturday)



· Perth will finish second unless the Kings lose to the Hawks and 49-point gap between Sydney and Perth is closed

· Perth can drop to third if they lose to Adelaide and Cairns win both their games this round. However, the Wildcats hold around a 13-point advantage over the Taipans to start the round



#3 – CAIRNS TAIPANS (16-10, 104.0%)

Remaining fixture: at Melbourne (Thursday), at Brisbane (Saturday)



· The Taipans cannot finish any lower than third even with two losses this round

· Cairns can get to second if they win both games and Perth loses to Adelaide, with the Taipans needing to make up about a 13-point margin over those games

https://nbl.com.au/news/every-possible-nbl20-finals-scenario-heading-into-round-20

Perth will want to make sure they have HCA so they should take care of Adelaide.
I think the Wildcats would have preferred to play any other team except Cairns in the SF. If the Cats go through I'd back them to beat Sydney or the 4th place finisher in the GF series.
If Cairns makes it through it's anyone's, though I'd love to see Cairns go all the way.

$50,000 on Perth at $6.05 against Adelaide

Too good to refuse. Thanks to the nbl.com.au bookmaker.

"playoffs but I think Perth's experience should see them prevail."

Hoping this, Cairns lack of playoff experience to derail them. I have a feeling Oliver will choke in the series and him and Plumlee will negate each other which bodes better for the Wildcats from an offensive perspective. Machado and Newbill will ball, but I don't think the 2 of them can do it alone with Cotton, White, Kay and Steindl attacking from all angles.

A swing and a miss

Cairns are playing some really good basketball at the moment.

I would not be surprised if they win the series.

The Wildcats' shooting has been inconsistent of late, Plumlee not 100% ingrained into the lineup yet.

White is out of form and will be coming up against DJ Newbill.

This puts a lot of weight on Cotton and Kay.

Per are still favourites but Cairns are no easy beats.

All the best to both for a cracking series.

SYD-NZB and CNS-PER would be my preferred series. NZB an interesting dynamic compared to the fourth-placed also-rans who have scraped in in recent seasons.

brings an interesting dynamic*

Regular season results
Round 03: PER 76 - CNS 96
Round 08: CNS 91 - PER 84
Round 11: CNS 84 - PER 88

Perth have a history of lifting in finals, both as a team and individually.
Assuming everyone stays healthy, I think they can sweep Cairns in two.

Cairns have done exceptionally well, and I would have loved to see them make the GF. But they stuffed up.
With two winnable gams in the final round, they were in the box seat to engineer a final against Sydney.

I suspect they sipped some of the Koolaid and began to think they were a chance of finishing 2nd.
Or maybe they listened to some of the ignorant fools here who spent the whole season writing Perth off.

You can slag off Gleeson all you like, and make fun of his moobs and bald-spot, but he's the best coach in the NBL.
And listen to your own commentators "The Road to the NBL Championship runs through Perth."

This has been a great season, and the beauty of the finish is that there are still 4 teams that could quite feasibly win the the ring. But the one team you don't want to face is a fit and competitive Perth.

Like I said, the are 4 teams I would not write off. And if I was a gambling man, I would have had a flutter on NZ when they are offering $51 yesterday.
But, if forced to make a single prediction (or a bet at equal odds) Perth would have to be favourites.

Dazz is on more than koolaid by the looks!
Taipans in 2.

I don't see perth loosing at home to cairns again, still haven't seen Plumlee play against Oliver.

Will playoffs effect how they play? Time will tell and I wouldn't be surprised either way.

Hopefully we get Plumlee type from the start of the season instead of a quarter. Perth really played the season with 2 imports.

still haven't seen Plumlee play against Oliver.

Terrico just isn't interested in home and away, come the finals he boots into Beast Mode and there aint no stopping him.

Cairns to win it all and I'm a Sydney fan

An interesting match up. Cairns has not seen this Perth team, and Perth threw away a good early lead in the loss on the road to Cairns. Plumlee is very agile, I can see him keeping with Oliver on the Perimeter. Perth's offence is still not humming, plumlee is clearly still learning his spots, that should be improved come playoffs. I expect to see a better balance of treating plumlee like hunt and trying to force feed him (NZ game), how will Oliver stop Plumlee rolling to the rim? Or will he leave cotton open for the three?

Perth always throw out new counters in the post season. What Perth needs is a healthy Terrico.

Dates released:

Perth v Taipans 28 February

Taipans v Perth 1 March

Perth v Taipans 5 March

Do you think Cairns can go all the way?
Naturally I want to see Pert win every game, but gees I would love to see Cairns win the big-one.

The SF is going to be tough, but I think Perth have the edge.
i) Cotton and White are both training hard, so apparently no injury worries.
ii) Cotton and Kay have hit their straps at the right end of the season.
iii) Cats now have Plumlee, who is better on his worst day than Hunt.
iv) Cats and Gleeson have more finals experience that anyone.
v) HCA, whilst not insurmountable, still favours Perth

"Why a Thursday night? Strange"

Yeah, it's weird. When do they start the GF??
I would have assumed it would start that following weekend, but that would be a bit unfair if one team had to play on the Thursday and the other didn't.

It seems they have tried to lessen the impact of travel on the lower teams, but I don't think that is fair. Sydney and Perth have earnt their HCA, no need for the league to try and cushion the impact.

Reducing the travel impact on Cairns? They fly here to play a well-rested Perth in Perth on a Friday night, then both teams head to Cairns to play on a Sunday afternoon, before a nice break before game 3 in Perth on the Thursday if needed.
Perth couldn't have asked for a nicer draw IMO.

In the other series there is zero travel impact on any series between Melbourne & Sydney regardless of scheduling.

This is going to be the more enjoyable series I think.

Cairns match up well to Perth.

Newbill can be used to slow either Cotton or White down if one of them fires up.

Space Cam will be hard to stop but then so will be Kay.

The only concern is Cairns' reliance on really 7 players, but they are young (except Nate) so less likely to tire but 40 mins chasing Cotton, White, Norton, Steindl is tough as well as being harassed by Martin.

Travel generally impacts the team without HCA the most. I still recall the last Perth v NZ GF series. By game three both teams were knackered, but NZ were basically zombies.

Cairns will have almost two weeks to prepare for game 1 in Perth.
Then both have to travel to Cairns for game 2.
Then a 4 day break to game 3.
Obviously this lowers the impact of travel, which lessens their disadvantage.

Travel generally impacts the team without HCA the most.