I'm not really buying this narrative that the pressure is somehow on United now.
They have home court advantage, have no need to win away from home in order to win the title, won their first home game very comfortably, and came very close to beating the JJs in their own house as well.

Tassie needs to find another gear because if things stay on serve, they lose.

JJs comfortably, just think Roth just pulls the right strings.

Fuck me these refs are already doing their best to ruin the game

To be fair to the refs, there is massive amounts of contact, not tough physical contact, arm swinging rubbish.

Referring is atrocious, no way that's a flop on Magnay when JLA shoulders through him & extends his arm
Delly the new flop king

JJs would be very happy to be only five down. Yes horrible call on Magnay, rest been right though.

You can't challenge a no-call, Tassie not challenging had nothing to do with their video guy.

There was a call, the tech foul. You can challenge that.

Someone tell Casey the same thing. FFS.

Vaughn Mayberry is still an absolute disgrace.

Another bad flop call on Magnay, he was behind the line, should have been two points and play on.

No question. Both were charges!

Disappointing that Will Magnay has been almost completely officiated out of this series

Another bad flop call on Magnay, he was behind the line,

As a ref, if you call a flop warning, you better be damn sure it's a flop. Neither of those were even close, it was simply Vaughn being a show pony and making the game about him, which is his trademark.

JJs just know they got Melbourne, United should have close it out in Tasmania when they had the chance. MacDonald is a fantastic player.

JLA again been average, Magnay to solid for him. United offence is stagnant and to much iso plus when open missing shots. JJs Doyle and MacDonald should get JJs over line with the toughest off Magnay. If united want to win they better play Travers all second half.

Very dumb play from Doyle, three stupid fouls out of his four.

Would be interesting to see how any of the three referees would cope if they were in the same position as magney with the shoulder dropped into them. perhaps they may change their thoughts if they were.

If this goes down to the wire, that bank 3 of gouldings at the half and the shot clock buzzer beater by Ili could end up being huge.

McDonald is shithouse. Obviously doesn't know about passing to team mates.

Thats all basketball is...
Jack up 3s and if they go in, you win, if they do not then you lose.
Curry and the Warriors absolutely destroyed this once great sport

I gotta say travers has impetus out of sight. Midway through last season he looked mediocre and was being shown up by next stars. This season he's been more consistent and lots of effort at both ends. Great to see

*improved* out of sight!

Both of these teams would get absolutely clobbered by the top Euro teams.
LOL 2nd best league in the world.
Yeah, i am also the 2nd best looking man in the world.
There, i said it, that must make it true

LOL United have given up 18 offensive boards LFMAO

LFMAO, imagine thinking the best team in the league getting OWNED by Majok Deng.
Yeah, 2nd best league in the world apparently

Deng seems to enjoy game 3's in GF series in Melbourne. I remember him having a great game in the GF series for the 36ers against United in 2018.

Rucker and Gaze fantastic on commentary

WTF was that finish?

Um, WOW!

Basketball is not a meritocracy.

No way

Oh my!

Go JACKJUMPERS

OMG !!!

So clark body checks Doyle and leads to an awful long shot. Then there is a super soft hip check called on Crawford as ref's know they want to foul. Then a no call on Doyle for softly trying to foul but not give up a usf, then nit a usf when deng reaches for delly. Then goulding maybe actually got bundled out of court no call, but more contact then half the things they just called. Then mcveigh nails a prayer..... ffs the nbl is impossible to play. It's literally like playing a game where the rules are always changing, and you don't know

Onya Jackies!!!

Thought Doyle was dumb to save that, but with no timeouts there's an argument for it.

McVeigh and Doyle's shot selection in that final minute, though, was godawful.

Fair to say the pressure is on United now

Incredible finish. Some low IQ/heat of the moment stuff from both teams, and even the shot from McVeigh was more difficult than it needed to be given the time left but what can you say, that's a shot we'll see time and time again (if the JJs take the series, at least).

What a cracker of a game. Melb unlucky, but you make your own luck in a best of 5 series.

Comment of the year

"Jack up 3s and if they go in, you win, if they do not then you lose."

Can't believe United had no play organized for that last inbound. Did they have a timeout left? I thought so. Either way very amateur

Goulding thrown over the side line on the last play by United in the turnover.

Cracking game, again Roth to smart for Vickerman, starts the last quarter with Bowen, handy player he's not defending JJs bigs, Deng goes rampant, Jla struggled again. Delly and Travers didn’t deserve to lose that game.

I tipped JJs, they got this.

Goulding thrown over the side line on the last play by United in the turnover.

Cracking game, again Roth to smart for Vickerman, starts the last quarter with Bowen, handy player he's not defending JJs bigs, Deng goes rampant, Jla struggled again. Delly and Travers didn’t deserve to lose that game.

I tipped JJs, they got this.

That was the shot that won the series. I dont see the JJs losing 2 games in a row from here. Fuck he's a cheeky bastard that McVeigh lol

Roth too smart for everyone

Gleeson coaching tree doing work.

Welp.

TAS are into favouritism now to win the championship at 1.50 odds.

100% PW, every big game Roth has been in the victors since he went to JJs. Even when Cotton got injured in the GF a few seasons back Perth nearly got the money. Gleeson is a wizard.

Jla has been great when off the bench behind Landale, his form this season been average.

Just back on Roth, he doesn't sub for the sake of subbing, he subs to change the game. To me Vickerman to me seems to sub for sake of subbing. His team at start forth should been there to put foot on throat, he had bench players on.

Look to see Deng get more minutes and continue to stretch the floor and put pressure on United's bigs next game.
Could be a significant match up x factor.

JJ's should get this at home

Roth's willingness to allow his players to speak during timeouts shows how much mutual respect there is between coach and players.
The culture they've established is so commendable.

His sincerity in the post game interview with Deng is demonstrative of his caring character and why the team and fans obviously love him

McVeigh did the same in Cairns on the buzzer & i knew this was going in!

What a ripper game.

Why Delly throw it away - he was awesome other than the last 10 secs ??

I'd need to rewatch the last few seconds but I thought JJs got in the way of the United player who was meant to get the ball so I’m not so sure it was a poor pass by Delly.

Next!!!!

Watching the replay, it was a pretty casual final inbound by Melbourne United considering Tassie was obviously going to trap/pressure. Only Goulding with any movement and Tassie defended it very well, with MacDonald taking away the corner and Doyle/MacDonald/Crawford/McVeigh all doing a great job denying on the strong side and forcing what looked like a desperation pass from Delly once Goulding and Ili were denied on the initial looks. Brilliant defense, but United maybe thinking a little too far forward to the FTs rather than the actual inbound play.

I won't count United out however, no reason they can't win two and a row from here.

Koberulz I actually thought that was extremely smart and instinctive buy Doyle . If he let the ball go out it would have allowed Melbourne to get set on defence instead they were caught off guard gave McVeigh time and space

Roth is a absolute gun of a coach turns average players into good ones McVeigh drimic Deng Macdonld magnay all playing career best ball in Tasmania

Missed the game but just watched the closing seconds.

Htf United turn that ball over. Then Jack jacks it. GOD DAMN.

Would've been a cracker to watch live that’s for sure.

JJs aren't throwing this away now. Been a great series even if it’s dragged out to get here.

Absolute bugger all coverage anywhere - online, mainstream, even the NBL itself.

Doesn't help when there's no publicity of when the game is on and no build up anywhere.

The NBL is what, 43, 44 years old now? Still can't get more than 15 seconds on channel 10 news for a game 3 GF, and nothing on any other channel. Doesn't matter how great the game was. I'm assuming the only state that cares right now is Tasmania?

Game 3 on the road

Bigger than Lampley

Hate to talk about refs but...why no unsportsmanlike on MacDonald? Almost identical foul to Delly-McVeigh end game 2. Literally almost identical action and contact.

Deng massive just like a couple of games in 2018

JLA interesting. He missed a couple weeks in January for "personal reasons". Recently a United player was asked about him, they made a comment about "he's playing through some stuff". Something not right. He used to be known as the "ultimate green light". Played 19 minutes and attempted 3 field goals today. What's going on.

CG43 has shot well, but if Clark and JLA continually can't get on the scoreboard like the last two games, it's very difficult

Still, 2 50/50 games where the margin was 1 point inside the last minute and Tassie won both. Could've just as easily been a sweep. Not over til it's over. Pressure on Tassie for a change now.

Sorry that Delly foul was on Deng. A fortuitous situation perhaps cos MacDonald clobbered him a moment later.

LV you might want to watch the McDonald/Goulding inbound play again closely and see who is holding who.

Koberulz I actually thought that was extremely smart and instinctive buy Doyle . If he let the ball go out it would have allowed Melbourne to get set on defence instead they were caught off guard gave McVeigh time and space With no timeouts, yeah. I didn't realise they were out, and obviously if they had one letting it go out and advancing the ball makes way more sense. No timeouts, you have to go length of the floor either way; obviously letting it run guarantees you the ball while throwing it back in risks Melbourne coming up with it.

McVeigh with zero urgency though...ridiculous.

Fair point Sebastian

On Deng, whatever happened to him? He broke out in the 2018 GF after Childress went down. Played to Cairns and finished top 20 in the NBL in scoring 2 seasons ago. This year, barely played (12 minutes per game). Clearly a talent.

What's the story and how did he go from averaging over 14ppg to buried at the end of JJ's bench....and a Grand Final star yet again

If JJ's do win this series, in Melbourne circles it may be forever known as "the one that got away"

Somehow United have led for 75-80% of the time across the first 3 games and find themselves down 2-1. Tassie just never gives up, and was more clutch in key moments in games 2 and 3.

And the Lee injury was one of those things which, totally unexpectedly, helped the JJ's. Of course, whether it helps them in Game 4 after United has a few days to prepare (assuming Lee's still out?) is another question. But for now it seems to be a bizarre stroke of luck.

I see Vickerman has taken blame for the loss, it's an honest assessment, for both the their last two losses, cost them a championship.

Dunkman vickerman was a little bit slow to react to what Roth was doing, but when you look at the experience united had on the floor it's on the playing group . Ive watched the replay 100 times and still can’t work out what delly was trying to do there was no united player anywhere near where he threw the ball the other side of the court was wide open

Reflecting on the last two games, there's something really obvious which hasn't been discussed much that I've seen (although I haven't watched all the pre and post game commentary)

That being, Vickerman's subbing rotations.

Flynn Cameron and Tanner Krebs' minutes have been substantially cut, compared to the regular season. Krebs has played 10 minutes across 3 games, Cameron 52 seconds late in Game 1.

Meanwhile, United has given up double digit leads after half time in Games 2 (15 points early 3rd qtr) and game 3 (10 points late 3rd)

CG43 has shot well early in games and is the leading scorer of the series, but hasn't scored many 4th quarter points. Delly has hit some big shots late in games, but threw away the bad turnover that resulted in the game 3 loss. And also committed the clumsy, controversial unsportsmanlike that sealed game 2.

Could it be that United's old boys are getting tired and not playing with the same intensity late in games?

Makes you wonder whether Vickerman will play those guys more in game 4, to try and preserve the legs of CG43, Delly, Ili and Clark for late in the game.

Some of his subbing was woeful, when McVeigh is on the floor Travers must be on, Bowen has potential but McVeigh scored to easily on him, struggled on travers. Jla got more minutes than he deserved, maybe there is something wrong with him but he's been average. I’d thrown Cameron for a stint, see how they defend him.

In United's defense they could have easily swept the series if a few things go their way so it's not exactly a disaster. The problem with 4th Q fades is that it's not the time of the game to be introducing guys like Krebbs or Cameron to see if they can make an impact and I agree with a lot of the above comments that they should be rotating guys earlier for spot mins here and there and try and get CG43/Delly more rest in quarters 1-3.

Unless I'm misremembering JLA had some family stuff going on that he talked about briefly after a game during an oncourt interview a few months ago? He was red-hot to start the season and has cooled off significantly, and balancing Hukport/JLA and when to go small is the biggest adjustment United need to make IMO. If Lee is out in particular that's going to probably be the chess game going forward. Roth is going to try different things and different small-ball lineups and Vickerman is going to need to adjust quicker.

I remember when random 36ers fans on here would complain that McVeigh showed too much passion. He seemed very calm in that post-win huddle as all the surrounding teammates fired up with emotion. Ha.

Yeah that's exactly what I mean Angus. So entering the 4th Quarter, CG and Delly have only played 20 minutes like they would've in the regular season, instead of 22-25 minutes.

The NBL website (dated today) shows no injuries for the Jumpers. Isn't Marcus Lee out for the rest of the series?

Could someone pls give me the actual situation?

Has anything been announced yet? Last I heard (yesterday) there was still no indication from the team on the severity of the injury.

Generally in situations like this, no news = bad news.

It didn't look great for him at the time, but hopefully for the sake of the series he's ok and Tassie are just being cagey.

He went down with shoulder injury and it was suggested he he was missing games, played the next one. JJs very good at keeping things under wrap.

JJs odds for Game 4 have been drifting, perhaps on injury concerns?

Lee out.

With Lee playing, I would have said Jumpers take the title in 4. Without Lee, I see United taking the next two.

Lee out? Jesus Christ. Don't gift them another one.

It's always sad to see injuries taint the potential of a best v best clash

Agree cos I really like Marcus Lee, he starred for United last year

But I think they'd rather have him injured than Doyle, McVeigh, Crawford, Drmic, Magnay (given how he's been playing lately- although not in this series) or even Sean MacDonald given their big man depth is superior to their guard depth (having Krslovic whose played valuable roles over the past few years, plus Deng if they wanted to go small)