Hoops

Brendan Joyce takes it to another level

I haven't checked closely on the statistics of teams playing back to back but when I last looked I remember noting that most of those ended in losses. The sub on 5/sub off 5 was not an option in the last game in Brisbane. There was hardly anyone to sub on. Everyone was exhausted and/or injured. Injuries brought on by 3 games in 3 days. I turned to one of the guys I was with (a friend of a friend) and suggested he go out there to help them out. I thought to myself, damn the NBL for putting teams under this sort of stress that they can't even do the job properly. That is no way for anyone to perform regardless of which team. The whole schedule was all wrong. That is also the reason why the win one week later at home against Brisbane was even more special than the Brisbane win to their fans because they arrived in Adelaide fresh and still lost miserably. Goes to show what you can do under the right conditions.

"He's concerned that players won't have a legitimate shot at progressing"

Isaac, how does that differ in the post season as in the regular season? That's the exact point I've always made. You've got to progress beyond the regular season to even have a crack at the post season. Also your comments about watching exhausted players, I could not agree with you more. You might not remember but I was actually in Brisbane the night the 36ers got a thrashing. How entertaining do you think that game was for a 36ers fan? How entertaining has the whole season been for the fans? The fans deserve to see better and the team deserve a better opportunity to keep the fans happy, and yes that does extend to club management as well.

Bizzy, stop comparing us to the NBA. The situation is different in terms of distances and class of travel. I also acknowledged that the schedule was tough for most but Gold Coast were much better off than Adelaide as they only had to do it once and the travel was relatively short compared to Adelaide doing it twice and having a much longer distance. The only reason I am making a comparison with Gold Coast is because its Joyce who has made a complaint about the finals schedule when he should consider himself lucky to be where he is. Also the situation on the 10 and 12th January still gave them a travel free day on game nights.

Statman, I had forgotten about the schedules until Joyce threw more fuel into the fire (blaze).

I acknowledge that he is saying the same things I am, but he also has to realise that he is in an enviable position right now after having avoided the worst of the regular season scheduling. By the way, I wrote to the NBL about the schedules this season and they acknowledged that it wasn't ideal. I thought that was a step in the right direction to atleast acknowledge that improvement was needed. This was their response.......... We are very award of the shortcomings of the current schedule and are working with teams to try to overcome them for next season. We would disagree that it is unfair however as all teams suffer through similarly difficult patches of travel and all teams actually approved their schedule prior to it being released. That being said, we are close to finalising next seasons schedule already and it appears that we have been able to limit the impact of travel schedules on teams." Regards, ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MARC HOWARD | Manager Media, Communications & Internet | National Basketball League L3, 256 Coward Street, Mascot NSW 2020 (+ 61 2 9469 7213 | 7+ 61 2 9469 7201 | ' +61 419 512 139 * marc.howard@basketball.net.au | ý www.nbl.com.au

I knew that was coming Isaac because I checked my comments after posting and did notice they had 1 occasion of 2 consecutive games. Even so, I thought whoopy do, they had to get from Sydney to the Gold Coast (the equivalent of Adelaide to Melbourne) on one occasion and thought Joyce was still much better off than most of the other teams. Remember, apart from a regular season schedule that favoured him, he only made playoffs by 1 game.

He also complains about the finals draw. He mentions that if his team wins the 1st playoff game they then have to travel to Perth to play another instant elimination game 2 days later. Perhaps 2 days is not enough for someone who hasn't had the misfortune in the regular season to play on 2 consecutive nights in different cities like many other teams (Adelaide twice). He should consider himself lucky to just scrape in the playoffs on a 15-15 record, one solitary game more than the 36ers.