Hoops

36ers vs Wildcats, Jan 23

You couldn't pay me enough to ref at NBL level and cop the sort of unconstructive abuse people are prepared to give on here.

I am not saying that the reffing was great on Sunday, there were certainly some bad calls both ways (probably favouring the Sixers actually), but it certainly wasn't the worst it has been all year and is massively overexaggerated as a problem by some posters.

Bad calls are part and parcel of the game. Tone it down guys and get on with supporting your team. There is certainly no need to go around calling out any particular refs for abuse.

Have you ever wondered why the refs aren't up to standard as you say. It starts down at the associations from which they come from, me being a ref myself, i get little rules updates, no clarifications on the rules, little improvement training at all. And the associations that do do it don't do it to a high enough level. Also with the amount of crap refs get from fans and players alike, who would want to ref higher level games? I'm sure there is people who feel this way and just don't see the point of reffing higher level and trying to improve themselves if they just get treated like shit at the games. It's more who wants to do the NBL when refs feel like this.

I would take Ballinger over Majok in a heartbeat. His numbers say it all.

Just wondering, but how do we all know that 'Mr Clarke' didn't call for his players to foul? Are we certain of this?

It couldn't possibly be the fault of those 'adult players' I'm hearing about that failed to make the decision to foul using their own noggins? Could it?

That last paragraph is unnecessary mate. Refs are human, we all make mistakes don't we? Do you really expect the refs to get EVERY call right?

@ Xztatik, they for agreeing with me. Im shocked! Blown out of the water!

No one likes injuries to players however there is a boundary to cross when this happens. I dont generally condone clapping or yelling abuse at any injured player. Its just not on even in AFL.

@ The Situation- you talk all about finals and yet, its clear we arent in the final round of the regular season. And yet, I think you're unhappy because you lost again to a 'lower placed club' than your beloved team. It was all rosy at 4:36 to go then you shut up shop like Adelaide do occassionally. Its the way it pans out.

As for refs, well....ive been there said that. They are gronks, all of them and very out of touch.

A comment was posted yesterday claiming Adelaide won with over reffing or comments referring to it. Wrong, in the second quarter, a foul was called against a 36ers player, for the smallest of touches to a back and yet the obvious one's they dont pick up. Thats why NBL basketball refs like Benn McDonald need a new profession.

Cool story anon,

Yeah foul count was 2, me and the boys were screaming for a quick foul to halve the 4.7 perth had. That can bite you in the ass though with lisch's smarts he could of seen it coming and quickly put up a shot to get to the line. I've seen the master Reggie Miller do it before knowing the opposition were gonna foul. All in all lucky lisch missed the jumper. Hoping the 6ers can play with the same intensity they had in the last 2 mins on sat night.

Who Me, Paul pretty much said it already, but Brown went to double team Shannon, leaving Ballinger to move off him. It was not a bad tactic as Shannon's pass Ballinger was under some pressure and nearly didn't get there. They gambled and lost.

Lisch should never have had the chance to take that look at the end, miss or no. Foul dammit foul!

Yep, 4 3ptrs and a 3pt play in the span of a few minutes. Certainly the devastation I'd expect him to perform.

Glad to see he climbed out of his slump. Obviously the man can hit any set shot on the court. Just needs to learn how to handle the ball more to avoid the turnovers.

yeah Khazzouh is eligible for votes but in my eyes he would not deserve to win it outright. Easy to look good when you are the only ripe fruit on a crap tree.
Last year when Homicide won it, I couldn't really argue, he put up good numbers and I would feel the same if Ervin won it this season.

Penney missed 5 games at the start of the season and is now sitting in second place behind Ervin on the NBL Top Scorers list with 19.6 points per game on average.
Khazzouh cannot be MVP, by definition MVP mean most valuable player, sure he's valuable to Sydney but he sure as hell hasn't carried them to many victories this season. Great Player but not MVP material this season.
Ervin deserves it based on his form for the first half of the season but I will not be surprised if Penney's numbers continue to rise and the Hawks woes continue and Ervins numbers fall off a bit and Penney sneaks in.
I would take Kirk Penney over any player currently in the league from a recruitment point of view.

Yeah Ballingers output eclipses Wilkinson and Penney's and against tough opposition. Gets my vote.
Anyone think Penney's gonna beat Ervin for the season MVP ?

Yep, definitely 2 fouls to give. Very bad end game management and lucky Lisch's shot rimmed out or some very serious questions would need to be asked. Surely that is the very thing that the coaching staff are required to keep track of in the crunch.

Redhage is not my favourite player, but deserves due respect. I was on my feet applauding him as I would any respected opponent after a horrific injury, as was everyone around me. Shame on anyone who would wish another person ill, or take pleasure from it. World war I diggers had more respect for the guys that were trying to blow their heads off than some here have shown to a superstar in a sporting contest.

Good game, great come from behind win. The refs did not decide the game, Lisch's miss in the last second did (when he got up a pretty reasonable look).

Speaking of which, Marty made a fundamental coaching error on the last play. The Sixers had two fouls to give with 4 seconds left to play. The instruction should have been to foul the inbounds receiver immediately. Two fouls could have burned precious seconds off the clock, and would have perhaps prevented Lisch getting up such a good look.

A stirring come from behind win like this is the kind of win the team needs to boost its confidence for the the next run on the road.

Good point about the errant whistle at the end Ushiro. The refs might also have been remembering an incident earlier in the game when the Sixers were almost certain to score and one of them blew their whistle because they couldn't work out whether the ball had changed possession or not!

Yeah the bounce of the ball went the Sixers way at the end, but it often goes the other way. Also, Perth played poorly on Sunday and wouldn't have deserved the win if they got it.

@dave-blocknorth and xztatik
Please stop giving these guys any response, they are total wankers and have no idea, to think it is O.K to applaude an injury to Redhage or any player is totally wrong. Karma if you believe you may recieve!!
Ask your closest friends what they think of you honestly and prepare yourselves for the response, have a long hard look in the mirror..

I'd love Ballinger to get PoTW. But unfortunately Kirk Penney has told Balls that he can't have "his precious".

Ballinger for POTW after that performance?

In regards to the errant whistle, I would assume that the ref in question was about to call a foul, realised that it would disadvantage the 36ers, stiffled his blowing of the whistle, to allow the advantage. However, he did not realise with all the crowd noise, how many players had actually heard the noise. The correct action, as mentioned previously, would have been to indicate a referee error and give the ball to the 36ers to restart from the sidelines. If there had been no score, it would not been perceived as any consequence.

In regards to the Ballenger "tip in", the refs did not have the benefit of TV replay and could only call in real time from where they were on the court. Bit like cricket umpires and technology in previous years.

^^^ Your a sad little man

*sigh at the sledging of both fanbases*

Personally I think the Perth v Adelaide games have always been a highlight of the NBL season for a hell of a long time. Sounds like most of the attacks going against Perth fans and Adelaide fans are for the same reason.

Probably one of the main reasons the matches are good and the turnouts are good: because the fanbases are exactly the same.

As for Redhage; the injury is a shame. Yes, he does make a difference to their team and scoring could have been alot different. Here's for a speedy recovery.

Perth fans, Redhage does play dirty sometimes; but then again, if he was playing for Adelaide, he would be doing the same thing; you'd be arguing the fact and we'd be telling you it doesn't happen. Every team has a player like that, not everyone likes to admit it.

As for the "one sided calls to reffing" that have been brought up; hate to tell you this but it happens everywhere. That's the whole reason road games are tougher, usually because of the lop-sided reffing.

Can honestly say apart from last nights game, Perth have had a few comeback home wins mostly thanks to some poor reffing; same goes for Wollongong and New Zealand too. Every club has home games like this; just another one of those things everyone has to learn to deal with.

On the topic of video reffing; the sad part is that if every arena gets the facilities for it, I would hate to think how many decisions would need to be made using it. Every arena that can support it now (e.g Adelaide, Sydney) would need a few more cameras to get enough angles on plays to make video reffing worthwhile.

^says the guy with the school yard language and forum gangster spelling lol.

If Redhage could stop lifting his elbows when he sets screens against smaller point guards, less people would have smirked when he went down injured. Dislocated hips a bit rough tho, I would have settled for a stubbed toe.

Thanks for giving NZ a bit of breathing room at the top

Lets see in the last 2 minutes things that went against the cats
1: Ballinger looks to tip in the basket they call a 3ptr
2: Small whistle blown down the cats end (could hear it on ONEHD) everyone stops... then told to continue to play and Adelaide score again
3: Martin goes up for rebound nudged out from under the basket in the back no call

I think the NBL will eventually have to think about bringing in an NBA style video review by the ref's on plays that are too close to call even if its only in the in the last 3 minutes of a game to make sure these game winning/loosing calls are correct as that's all anyone watching really wants... sometimes it will go in your favour, some times not, but at least you will know the correct call has been made when it really matters especially in the Play-off's eg Lisch's long range shot last year in the GF.

So basically, today everything went right for Adelaide down the stretch and nothing went the way for the Wildcats.... 36rs should consider them selves very lucky to get the win

the next game will be very interesting @ Perth on Saturday, I am predicting either overtime or a 7pt win to the Cats at home.

Weigh & especially Lisch will have to step up their games for the rest of the season to somewhat cover the Redhage loss.

Positions 2,3 and 4 are still up for grabs, though the Cats still should make the finals in one of those 3 positions IMO.

BigAds, I was specifically referring to two plays in a row right after Balls sat for a rest. I don't know if Creek was supposed to be on him, but he was and Redhage's eyes lit up and he burned the rookie with a 2 and a 3. I saw him lining it up and was thinking 'oh no, there goes the game'. Fortunately we were able to rescue it, but Creek is not ready to guard someone like Redhage just yet.

Phil, Majok went to U-Conn and only ended up playing one full season. When he went there he was touted as a future NBA draft pick, but I think he didn't see eye to eye with Calhoun and ended up not getting as much court time as he wanted. Reports were that Majok's family pressured him into declaring for the NBA draft last year because they wanted to start seeing him earn some money from basketball.

He wasn't drafted of course and so headed to Europe at the start of the most recent season, then the Cats picked him up a couple weeks back.

I actually think Majok has shown that he has more than one party trick so far. He is not ready to star in the NBL yet obviously, but I would take him on the Sixers in a heartbeat. Not only is his shot blocking ability exceptional, I have seen him execute some nifty post moves for a guy who was supposed to be lacking skills! Did you see his footwork to beat Balls for that layup tonight? That was pretty to watch. I saw him make some good shots in his first game against Melbourne too. Nevill is big and is as good as it gets in this league and Majok outplayed him easily on a few plays.

He also seems to have a great attitude on court. He plays hard and with aggression, but he also plays with a smile on his face and showed good sportsmanship helping up one Tiger after he had swatted the crap out of his shot last week!

I really hope some team is able to keep him in the NBL long-term. I think he'll be great for the sport in this country if he's on tv screens here every week!

Beantown, I think you will find that Brad Hill was given the assignment to guard Redhage in the last quarter and not Creek.

Overall well done Sixers! That was a tough game and a gutsy win. The Cats had us when they were up 8 with 1:30 to go, but our guys didn't give up and made some good plays to snatch the win. Not often I've been able to say that in the last few years!

Balls you are the man. I think you need a nick with more hard currency. Its gotta be MONEY-BALL! Great clutch shooting but he did so much more.

He made a clutch block on Weigh with 46 secs to go that kept us in the game, was very solid on D and after half time, I thought he and Holmes hard work on the boards really gave us the foundation to grind out the win.

Hill and Howard were also good, making some good baskets and dragging down 11 boards between them. Howard is still a bit frustrating at times offensively, but what is good is that he consistently contributes on the defensive end of the floor.

That win will do the players confidence the world of good. Hopefully we can translate that into some more confidence on the road and win one there soon!

Xztatik, Creek did have a good game tonight. Didn't notice him defending Redhage too many times though. He was on Redhage two plays in a row in the middle of the 4th and got schooled by him then.

I think Balls was subbed out for a quick rest, but Creek should never have been given the assignment of guarding Redhage at that stage of the game. In the 1:23 Balls was out, we went from 60-63 to 60-70 !!! Almost lights out. Fortunately, we rallied well and won the game.

Loved the game today, always good seeing perth go down. Not good for Redhage, Im not a fan of his either but sympathy goes out to him. he is dirty but every team needs someone to play like that. Oh and I was at the game- no one cheered him getting carried off, we applauded his courage simple as that. I liked our pressure D in the dying stages, It would be good to bring that desperation on D for 40mins we might even win a road game hustling like that.
Id like to see Howard control the point for a stint, its clear he can run an offence. He made some nice backdoor bounce passes today. Shannon just holds it for too long, He waits till 12secs on the shot clock before he even calls a play. Maybe it was our game plan today to kill the clock but I think we play better up tempo fast break basketball.
Hope Redhage has a speedy recovery( today was his 199th game in the NBL with no injury) Perth will find it tough to repeat now, My moneys on the breakers

The umpiring was poor but for once it was nice to see it work in the sixers favour. Two points being called three, phantom whistle blows when there was clearly a foul yet play allowed to continue with no stoppage.

On the matter of the Holmes's three was it conclusive that Ballinger made contact with the ball. I saw his hand hit the rim after the ball had bounced off the rim but I didn't see him actually touch the ball.

Majok would look nice in a sixers uniform, some of his blocks were sweet. Surprised he played so little as had a massive impact when on the court

Its never good to see someone hurt bad.

keep it clean guys, passionate sure but kids read this forum and im sure Isaac doesnt have the time to read and clean up every post..

great comeback, plenty of things to work on this week.

1 hint for clarke get the ball to ballinger. everything runs through him.

Ron Howard did well today and now will only get better but I thought there were too many times Shannon refused to give the ball to him (and for tha matter a few others) that were in better position to take a shot.
Ballinger blew the game apart with a 16pt 3rd qtr + managed to winning bucket with 4 ticks to go.
Majok should have been given a go in the final few mins after Redhage gotinjured. He had put together a decent game from very limited minutes.
S Weigh & T Creek both have very big futures.
All the fans who are legit wish Redhage a speedy recovery from what appears a serious season ending injury

Redhege has nothing on Kevin Muscat when it comes to dirty and dangerous, but seriously, anyone who has experienced a serious injury would not wish it on anyone.

I know I'm delusional but the sixers are still in touch with the top four and a win like today might start something.

I also liked Andre Brown's play. He'll be real handy for Perth come the finals.

There was an experiment with 2 equal teams , where one coach would speak heatedly , like Clarke does to Howard, never giving any praise.
Eventually, the other team that was praised for the good, became the better team.

Adelaide fans are just adding to their already horrible reputation they have amongst other cities in Australia. You have a reputation of being obnoxious and being unsportsmanlike. You look bag at previous threads where the 36ers lost and it's just about how bad the refs are, that's the only reason you lose. When you win it's how amazing your team is and how shit the other team is. But look at the ladder if you will, i do believe Perth is above you on the ladder? yes am i correct. I do believe it was a home game and you would expect the home team to win, yes? Is adelaide going to make the playoffs? Is perth going to make the playoffs? When did Adelaide last have a team contending for a title? Wait until your team is respectable and is contending for a year before you start mouthing off to the Perth fans (and i am not one at all).

All I know Spinner is it finished with Clarke pointing to the bench.

I think Howard was chastised for yell at the ref for a foot violation instead of getting back and playing hussle defence.

Howard realised who had the power and quit trying to make his point.

Just another observation from the last 3 minutes, how jacked off did Hill look going into a timeout when Shannon didn't deliver him a full court pass and instead drove and dished to Howard (who got fouled on the layup). Hill's pout appeared to be in full effect.

Pretty dour affair between the first and last quarter. The only enjoyment during that time was Majok's swats and Ballinger's third quarter. At one point half way through the final quarter I found myself wishing for it to finish quickly. I even told my wife that I was quite thankful we only had 3 more home games. I think the frustration hit hardest when Hill was switched to Redhage and he went to score the next 5 points and put Perth 10 in front.

What happened after that I didn't expect (even with the previous efforts shown in the last quarter of other games). The loss of Redhage was a big blow and appeared to affect the composure of the Wildcats. The sixers got a sniff and once again Ballinger make a huge play to get the lead.

Shame the Sixer's aren't back at home again until mid Feb. Finally it would have been nicer to see the sixers beat Perth with Redhage not being injured. Will make for an interesting trip to Perth.

And 6rs fans cheer harder then ever when one of your own go down with a serious inj ....
Coz I will be.

Wow this thread is really disappointing. does not deliver

6rs Fans -
Cheering and in raptures about a potential serious injury to an opposition player (S Redhage).
Thats the height of unsportsmanlike behaviour.
People that have the view they love to see opposition players break legs or suffer serious inj of any type every time they step on court ARE A DISGRACE.
The game doesnt need fans like U. If its good enough to cheer when Redhage went down its good enough to cheer when a 6r gets a serious inj too I assume.

Hurt his hip. Bevo seemed to think after the game that it is pretty serious. Would be very surprised if he played this Saturday against us.

Adelaide fans only behave like this when they win, when they lose the refs are absolutely terrible, i'm not a perth or adelaide fan, un-biased observation. Perth is in the playoffs, i think Adelaide fans should quieten down.

@ The Situation; your home crowd can talk. I must have been dreaming the day I got slagged on along with the team. I guess in Perth that would be sportmanship, right? Moron!

What a way to win it, a cluth 3 pointer. Awesome.
My only concern, especially after reading the Tiser today, Balls said 'the team were aiming to move the ball faster' and yet Shannon held the ball for an eternity and a day. Are you not part of the team Eddie?

As for Redhage, I am no sympathy whatsoever. I have seen him in SEABL with North West Tasmania Thunder do some nasty stuff and get away with it. Karma bites and when it does, it bites hard. Hope its a long flight home Shaun with delays on VirginBlue.
(it may be unsportsmanlike to say so, but hell this is the nastiest guy in the league and gets called for nothing despite doing it all).

Its moments like this I think to myself, is there a god or what!

Lastly, Benn McDonald; you are a serious toss. Go back to ref school and learn the game properly.

Sheesh skip, this warm up music selection is terrible.

When wrestling theme music is needed.... that's a new low.

You never no??? Perth gets a bit cocky at times, with a team like wat we have its hard not to b!!!! Weve had 2 players go down with injurys 2!! quality 1nz at that! Played with 1 import, unlike every other team had 2 to start the season, danger game 4 the cats!!! Perth win comfortably. Dont u guys wish u had a redhege??? If he played over east he shouldve been an MVP by now!!!! Think he was better than homicide tha 1 it last season!!! Cant wait 4 us to play breakers!!! Again were going aukland after a road doubble in nsw!!! Not Fair?? adelaid fans, ull get there, just need to spend more money, like dj, creek, balls Hill got ng there so need a couple imports & a killer pg & centre.

Redhage has'nt got a nasty bone in his body,he plays hard every min he is on the court. Easy to confuse the two if you have no idea what you are talking about.

First key to this game is applying D. We leave everyone open so shut everyone down and make them score the hard way.
Keeping Lisch, and Redhage quiet will be the hard one but not impossible.
Some fisty cuffs would make the game interesting.
I hate Perth and Redhage. He was a nasty player when in the SEABL with North-West Tasmania many years ago and still is.

Perth by 9