Hoops

Sixers first game post-mortem

Creek got all the minutes he deserved and more. See Isaac's post above. He is nothing more than a limited role player with potential at the moment and he should be played as such.

On the other hand, the guy who said Creek has failed to develop also needs to show a bit of patience. He has played less than 20 NBL games, having come straight from the AIS. Give him a chance to develop!

Judging by the way he brought the ball up against Perth, he has already started improving his ball-handling. We haven't seen much evidence of an improved jumper yet, but that's going to take time.

Thank god someone spoke up about the awful reffing Loco. Haines was once a good ref, however has fallen into the trap of being a toss when it comes to calls.
Benn McDonald is the worst in the league as far as I am concerned. He couldnt ref to save his life and Ray Hunt is too old.

As for us, well there arent too many diamonds in the rough its gotta be said. First quarter was ok, but ball handling errors/turnovers :(

Helliwell is a player to whom is a cheap buy, cant do much except screen and doesnt get inside for a rebound. Why did we buy him?

Weigh and Herbert I like in the team. I think they are both valuable. Give some time with these guys. If Hill got 3 season to get ti right after being injury prone, then herbert gets at least 1 year.

Creek, just a bad game all round. Nothing major there to speak of.

Who's the rookie, no 32?

Daly should have gotten more time on the floor given we were only trailing by 27 at 3/4 time or so.

lastly, the coach. They hit two 3's in succession, down by 10. Timeout? Nope! Lets play on to get further behind. Sure enough, time out call down by 15. Gee whiz. Not good entertainment that one

Can I start ref bashing yet?

That was a car wreck. Super Mario and Phil Haines were absolutely horrible.

Rupert Sapwell - game commentator on the radio when they were talkin ' bout Smyth's new Basketball Academy
" At time outs he'd talk to his assistant coach for 45 seconds , then told us . 'You're all do very well'
Even when we weren't. "
Good game nite coverage with interviews - Batkovic Cox Clarke Ballinger Radford Bevo Leeanne Grantham
may have missed 1 or 2.

It's all Helliwell's fault . He loves setting screens
Only got 8points in half a game.
What difference which side you're on if you're sailing on the Titanic.

X, Herbie has been good in the past, but he did get burned by Lisch early on in this game. Lisch was way too quick for him, which IMO is a big part of why Marty took him out of the game and played Crosswell alongside Warren. Hopefully Herbie just needs more games to get up to speed, but physically he didn't look great last night.

Posters see answers . " Bruce cain't play . Burston's too short. Helliwell's a dud. "

Cor blimey DM, you're a bit off on the Warren remark!
If you watched Warren closely, you would see that he could get anywhere he wanted on the court anytime he wanted. But he is actually smart - just like Mills he is too small to drive all the way to the basket and expect to score very often. Instead, he pulls up for his silky smoother jumper, which most of the time is nothing but net and a far more reliable weapon.

Anon #333945 pretty much spot on mate. I would add that a big part of our defensive problems last night were caused because the only two bigs we have right now are too slow to guard Redhage or Wagstaff out on the perimeter. Same reason Wilkinson torched us last year. Perth just run a pick and pop with Redhage or Wagstaff - either we're forced to switch and they can shoot at will over one of our guards, or they isolate them one on one against Helliwell or DJ, who sag off because they don't want to get beat off the dribble. This is why I was saying before the game it was a bad idea to run Helliwell and DJ together.

The Sixers have to get better at defending simple pick and pop basketball and they also have to work really hard at their rotations until it becomes second nature to all of them. Right now, when teams go on a run, they just don't have the defensive cohesion to pull together and get a few stops to break the momentum.

Hopefully this new import will be here soon and can make a difference with regard to defensive mobility on guys like Redhage, Wortho, Wilko.

Two quick observations:

1. Perth is the favourite for the championship
2. Adelaide will not play finals

Croswell was good as backup. Warren shot ok but relied on the jumper and didn't/couldn't penetrate. Had both cross well and Warren on at the same time and both looked confused when didn't have the ball.

It was against Perth who choke everyone. Did you see mills's stats recently agains the 3 pronged guard defense.

Amazing comeback from redhage after a massive injury.

Creek was subbed out just when he was starting to get a bit physical with Perth which was good to see. At least he showed he was frustrated even if he can't shoot.

Ng and Warren on together we are too small and light. Both got out rebounded a number of times and gave up easy putbacks

He Lowell was never gonna be a superstar. He didn't play well but no one did. He at least tried to set some screens.

I still can't understand how Perth get away with the hand checks and rough D and then we get called for the softest calls. The refs then start to make up for it in the 4th when the game is over.

guys it was only our first game without probably 2 of our best 3 players, if this is happening late in the season then we will have something to really worry about, not doom and gloom yet by a long shot.

Perth are a rock solid team, most fans would have them finishing in the top 2, and have played together for years, so at this stage they are a class above us but they were at full strength where we were missing 2 of our 10 pt players.

Clarke as coach is ok to me, compare him to Bevo in his first 2 years at West Sydney and remember Perth is better resourced than us and Bevos Razors were also which helps with recruiting, but Clarke is going down a similar path than what Bevo was IMO, recruiting and hopefully retaining top young talent, if we can hold onto Creek, Johnson, Weigh and get 2 good imports for the next 5-10 years we will be pretty solid IMO of course continuing to target and recruit top young talent along the way, which i think Clarke is in a good position to do. Which means Clarke is on the right track.

Johnson is good offensively and will average 15-20 pts IMO, but as said still isnt the best defensively, hence why in the ideal when we have all of our players he will likely play most of his minutes alongside our import who can hopefully play some defense to balance him out and Ballinger and Helliwell will be a combo with Helliwell playing the defensive role to balance out Ballinger. I think Johnson will be one of the best C's going forward so hopefully we can retain him for the remainder of his career, as given he is a bit soft phyysically on defense and not a great rebounder he probably isnt going to be a guy who spends too much time in Europe. We just need to be aware of this and recruit a PF who plays defense and rebounds along side of him.

Weigh is a great pick up, will be very good, i think he will average something like 16pts 8 rebounds playing sf/pf, maybe even some SG.

Creek is a good young talent, he has plenty of work to do offensively, but be patient look at say Abercrombie at 19-20 years of age he wasnt doing any better, not even sure if he was on a NBL roster, so i think Creek will do fine and shows plenty of promise. I would like him to really focus on defense and be given the toughest defensive match up from PG-PF this year while his offensive game grows as he has the athleticism and toughness to do it imo, try to use him like Perth do Martin but from the SF spot, and i reckon he would have been better against Redhage and Wagstaff than having slower Helliwell and Johnson trying to guard them outside. I wouldnt mind seeing him start SG alongside Warren in a defensive role, and we could use Weigh as our SG on offense who has more perimeter skills.

Warren looks good to me, can shoot, is quick, yes he is small and not the strongest but if we can pair him with say a Herbert or Creek defending the best guards on the opposition our back court should be fine. If our import PF is as good, we will have a good import combo.

Herbert will be ok, he is just a role player, play defense, hit open shots, and surely will do better as the season goes along. For his role/points/$$ who else is better out there, other options available are guys like Kendall who is not really a upgrade on his past couple of seasons. If going forward we have concerns with him starting SG we could get a Dorsey type sg/sf/pf to start SG with Herbert backing him up,

going forward (next 5 years) a starting line up of Warren, Dorsey type, Creek, Weigh, Johnson with a veteran Ballinger, Herbert and a solid back up PG like Crosswell as our main 8 rotation looks good to me, which i would say is something close to what Clarke is building towards, but obviously we need more development out of young guys like Creek for this to work.

Helliwell was our 10th man and when full strength will be used as our defensive C alongside Ballinger for around 10mins per game, so not a bad pick up and not expected to do huge things, just play the Reesy role alongside Balls and im happy.

All in all not a great start tonight but i can see what Clarke and the 36ers are building towards and beleive it will work if we can retain our young talent, the likes of Warren, Creek, Weigh, Johnson we will have a real strong team over the next 5-10 years.

Just finished watching the game on OneHD and I really can't believe what I saw. I know the 36ers are missing Balls and a 2nd import right now but Perth just dominated every part of the game tonight.

Right from the get-go they had a full court press running and Adelaide just couldn't adjust. The 36ers often took over 5-8 seconds to get the ball to their end and then they were out muscled and forced often into hurried shots. And as for defense.....if you can see the zone isn't working, change it. Perth killed us tonight because they had so many open or easy shots. The zone lasted all game and we got slaughtered. Tell me, is this the 2011/12 season or is it 2010/11?

As for Perth, have to admit they were awesome tonight. Remains to be seen how they go for the rest of the season but boy do they look better with Shaun Redhage suited up. IF they can keep up something like they showed at the AA tonight I'm not surprised they are favourite to take out the championship.

Weigh was disappointing but not nearly as disappointing as Hill has been in years gone by.

Helliwell didnt do much tonight in fact he was hardly ever in the key let alone rebounding which begs me to ask the question, "what was his role?"

Not many highlights for the end of year celebrations but standout was definitely Warren. Should be happy with that game.

Can't argue.

Insipid peroframnce.

Really angry.

We have NO heart.