Hoops

Scotty is very concerning

Isaac, bang on the money, our second half was very disappointing. Third quarter fade outs appear to be the way the Sixers play nowadays.

But, I believe there is a more sinister reason for the loss. After the 1 point win game, Brett Maher commented that he had ducked into a certain sponsor's box at half time. "I won't be doing that again!" was the comment in the Apollo room. Perhaps the lure of caviar, lobster and french champagne was a little too much for Brett on Wednesday night. I now put forward a conspiracy theory that Brett Maher did pay that sponsor a half time visit and as a result upset the positive energy balance resulting in a tear in the energy balance resulting in the Sixer's poor performance.

Therefore, Scott is not Evil.

If Brett did pay a visit to that sponsor, I say to that sponsor - lock your door at half time pal!

Wollongong is built to a budget but appear to be more than competitive and are getting a lot of good solid team play from the players that they have.

Team: where was it with the Sixers last night? More like a lot of individuals, only some of which were making any sort of valuable contribution.

Having Burston in the middle is clearly important, and without that we look without structure. But where is our back up plan? The Tigers got valuable minutes and points out of their third and fourth string centres, whereas we had no centre making any impact at all?

XY and Paul, I couldn't agree more with what both of you have said.

Not sure if the coaching staff is failing to install the right offensive play sets, the players just don't get it, or a combo of both. It has to change though and in the end the buck stops with the coach. How are you gonna fix it Scotty?

There were a couple of comments about Burston and Hill earlier too. I'd respond by saying:

1) Burston being fit is critical because Balls will do a lot better at PF on both ends, we will have a guy there for the drive and dish and the offensive rebound and Holmes will be able to come off the bench again where he will be more effective.

2) I think Hill should get the starting SF job, but I can't blame Ninnis for not starting him at this stage because he hasn't been fit for most of the pre-season and early season. The team needs Hill to be able to start soon though.

BTW I thought Herbert was good last night at doing all the little things - but he is a stop-gap starter until Hill gets fit.

"What we lacked was a player to take the team on his shoulders and carry them through".

From half time on, that's all I could mutter.

Sixers looked lost at both ends. Saw Gilchrist get upset with Groves for obviously being in the wrong spot after the defence call... Confusion reigns.

I think we are probably a worse team than last year.

I know it is early days, but there is no chenmistry or sense of solidarity at all.

We needed some mongrel down the stretch. I saw Groves niggling Kendall a few times but nothing came of it.

Where has the drive and dish to Balls gone. That was money. I tend to agree with the above posts, best bet is to run Ng off double screens all night, if only Ng could run all night.

The lack of offensive structure was extremely disappointing. Groves and Hill did ok on the iso plays, but other than the individual efforts, there were NO structured team offenses that I could identify at all.

Not once in the second half did a Sixer get a clean look with feet planted from the three because of good offensive rotation. No once did the driver spot a good drive and dish to dump the ball down low or the kick out to the corner. Seriously atrocious, and it looks like the team is getting worse with its offensive rotations.

That is not even to start with the mockery that was the Sixer's team defence.

I am afraid I have to join in the growing queue pointing a finger at the coaching staff. If players are not in the right positions on court and don't know where they are supposed to be then the coaches have to take the rap.

Seriously, this team would be better off running NZ's offense and just running Ng all game off of double screens. But for unknown reasons that doesn't even appear to be in the playbook. Every three Ng has hit all season has been when he has created the space himself.

Very poor game all round.

What is also very concerning about Ninnis is that he never admits to any fault as a coach when the team performs badly. In post game interviews, his comments are always the same, they worked their butts off at training all week but came out soft and weak. If the players come out soft and weak, then surely that is a reflection on the coach. I am sick of comments like the other team played harder, or the other team wanted the win more, or the other team played with more heart. Why? Why? Why? If you recognise the problem, why aren't you fixing it? The signs I have seen so far this season are far worse than last season. This is a really bad mix of players. Gilchrist is not the PG the 36ers needed. He was signed after 2 weeks of training with the team. He may have looked impressive at training, but he is hopeless in high pressure competition. He doesn't even behave like he is a force to be reckoned with. Ballinger our star player has dropped considerably in stats so far this season. Where are the 20-10 games you would expect from him? This has to be attributed to the team mix. I can see some success being achieved with Burston coming good and free from injury but I can't see a successful future for the team with Gilchrist at starting PG.

By the way, he has yet to be introduced to the fans in the Post game interviews upstairs. If anyone knows why, please share it.

Herbert & Burston were huge last season. CJ hasn't had a bad season since his Dad coached him at Canberra. Adelaide suck! What would Goorgian do? He would slap that lot of sorry asses into a contender, thats what he'd do. The coach is everything - make a move now.

This sums up my observations of the sixers over the past 3 years.

"Nice going boys you played yesterday's tape"

- Bill Murray - Groundhog Day

I wonder how Adam Ballinger must feel?

The players seemed confused especially in defence, one minute man to man then a 2,1,2 zone then a 3,2 zone and that transposed to the offence - as they said on the radio on the way home, they could'nt shoot from outside, in fact Melbourne looked like they wanted Gilchrest and others to shoot from outside. When Holmes (after all these years when is someone going to teach him you can't shoot/release the ball from over 2 feet in front of his face?) went off the court and Cooper came on, Worthington just went beserk,shot the lights out and more than doubled his score in a few minutes.

Was it 25 points we scored in the whole last half? We could have just double screened for Ng and he would have scored more than that.

The only bright lights were Hill and Groves positive attacks on the basket.

Gilchrest was mentally somewhere else, the only time we looked alright was when we had the combo, Holmes, Ballinger,Hill, Groves and Ng on the court.

Then again, worst shooting game I've seen from Balls and Jacob turned the ball over a number of times after taking good rebounds in defence (its called pivot out of trouble Jacob and a safe pass).

Very disappointing game we should have won comfortably.(and the refs missed at least 10 travels for the Tigers).

Herbert busted his ass and was one of the harder guys tonight.

How the hell are you going to blame Burston for an injury? Seriously, the guy has played through pain a couple times for us - that's flat out not fair.

Sixers fans are pissed - fine - god knows I'm jacked off the page - but turning on Burston is crap.

We signed Gilly for big money, and he folded. I like the guy. I think he has ability. But how are you going to take a loss and turn it on a dude with a fractured hand that didn't even play? C'mon.

Average healing time for his injury is 6 weeks. He played in TWO agaisnt Perth.... before Hill accidently hit him. The bones hadn't fully knitted yet. C'mon. Be fair. He was playing with a cortisone shot ffs.

having not sat in my normaly gold seat, i sat in a championship suite. Time and time again, the tigers got easy baskets by running the lanes and landing easy points. Down the other end, we struggled to do much after quarter time.

While much blame rests with players and coaches, the assistants need to make it clear what their job is and start doing it.

I will always follow basketball, however watching this garbage, perhaps next game I will bring a thermos of coffee and sit back and just enjoy the atmosphere. Very disappointing again!

I like gilly, but he sucked worse than anyone tonight. Nothing from the arc. No jumper. No penetration. No assists. No defence. Why leave him on?

For the record, I'm equally as pissed at Scotty tonight as anyone is. Just not for benching Gilly.

Ballinger played over 36 minutes, and your PG sucked...I dont think having them sitting in the 4th cost the game.

No way known would a Sixers team that I remember seeing live (over 10 years ago) be out scored so easily in the 3rd like that. Someone needed to stand up and sit a couple of Tigers on their ass and show some fight but they just rolled over. Very dissappointing.

and as for people whinging about Cooper, at least you know you will get 100% effort every second he is on the court