Hoops

36ers vs Hawks thread, sans Hodge

Probably Hill played a bit better and Paora not too bad. The 2 reds were good and Maher shot well.
Obviously, the team is not as good without Hodge.
The refs made a few bad calls, in particular the play on decisions when guys are getting fouled pretty hard, but I've seen a lot worse.
Cooper can't shoot but nearly got that one in, from the backcourt, on the buzzer.

Whilst Adelaide played quite well last night down one import, the problem is the bottom ranked teams have all picked up a couple of notches in the 2nd half of this season and a performance like last night is not going to go too far into the finals. Wollongong were severely undermanned, ranked lower than Adelaide and still managed to keep up (almost). Against any full strength team last night's performance was not enough. Had Hodge played, you would have expected a break away win which would be an indication of how well the 36ers will go. Without him or a similar replacement import, the 36ers will be lucky to make the playoffs let alone continue well beyond. Sorry to mention Hodge in this thread but it is a direct argument which made a difference to the team last night and he has only been used to compare the performance of the team and not the controversy surrounding his non show.

As for the refs, they were pathetic as usual but this time they were at least fair. Their crap calls and non calls disadvantaged both side.

Great crowd. Some horrible officiating mistakes (same foul getting no-call on the Hawks, then called on the Sixers at the other end 20 seconds later) but I don't think it affected the game.

Most impressive tonight was the all around contribution - 4 of the 5 starters had significant point contributions, Schensch and Coops a combined 20 rebounds, and some great shooting from Maher.

We gave up way too many first half points but the lads were able to stop the flow a little in the second half. The Sixers have a lot of skill in forcing bad shots and passes and causing the turnover, but when they don't apply the necessary defensive pressure, we get torched from jump shots and from the 3. Franklin exploited this in the first half. The defense lifted in the 3rd and 4th and was a big factor of why we got the lead and never let it go.