2014/15 NBL Season + Off-season news/Boomers

[wristwatcher]

NBL games coming up on TV this weekend:

Friday night: Melbourne @ Sydney at 9:30pm (One)

Sunday afternoon: Sydney @ Melbourne at 2pm (Ten)

Are these programmed months in advance or something? Two out of form bottom half teams who won't play finals.

Surely the 36ers going for 9 in a row and playing some red hot hoops is going to be a better option for TV. Albeit I am bias toward them

[king neptune]

Good news about the return of a Brisbane based team in the NBL again next season:

AN NBL legend and one of Australia's richest families are set to bring the Brisbane Bullets back to life.

Basketball great Larry Sengstock and businessman Paul Bendat are two of the directors listed under the company name "Brisbane Bullets Basketball Pty Ltd" which was registered with ASIC on January 8 this year.

Bendat’s father, Jack, is the owner of the Perth Wildcats and was No.70 on the 2014 BRW Rich List with an estimated fortune of $675 million.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/more- ... 7223342595

Hopefully this will see the Brisbane Bullets return for good. Seem to have good financial backing.

The revolving door of NBL teams coming, going, relocating, 're branding' and all too often folding has gradually stripped the league of a lot of credibility over the years. All starting in 1996 when Hobart, Geelong and Gold Coast (Rollers edition) carked it.

The NBL needs stability. No point bringing in teams like Hunter, Singapore, Southern Dragons and Gold Coast (Blaze edition) if they're just gonna drop out after a couple of seasons.

Cairns and Townsville really deserve a lot of credit for sticking around as they have, when their state's capital city team has fallen over.

[Gozu]

NBL games coming up on TV this weekend:

Friday night: Melbourne @ Sydney at 9:30pm (One)

Sunday afternoon: Sydney @ Melbourne at 2pm (Ten)

Are these programmed months in advance or something? Two out of form bottom half teams who won't play finals.

Surely the 36ers going for 9 in a row and playing some red hot hoops is going to be a better option for TV. Albeit I am bias toward them

Yeah unfortunately Ten program their schedules before the start of the season and don't budge from that, so you can kinda understand as Melb Utd were expected to be a championship contender and the Kings a playoff contender with Childress. But there should be some flexibility as 36ers/Wildcats tonight would've been a good opportunity.

[Gozu]

Hopefully this will see the Brisbane Bullets return for good. Seem to have good financial backing.

The revolving door of NBL teams coming, going, relocating, 're branding' and all too often folding has gradually stripped the league of a lot of credibility over the years. All starting in 1996 when Hobart, Geelong and Gold Coast (Rollers edition) carked it.

The NBL needs stability. No point bringing in teams like Hunter, Singapore, Southern Dragons and Gold Coast (Blaze edition) if they're just gonna drop out after a couple of seasons.

Cairns and Townsville really deserve a lot of credit for sticking around as they have, when their state's capital city team has fallen over.

I agree and hopefully the NBL are putting things in place that will keep a Brisbane Bullets team around. The talk is they needed a Brisbane based team to get a better TV deal so hopefully that happens. The Taipans are run with a community model in regards to ownership and that seems to be working for them very well. The Crocs almost folded last offseason and downgraded and moved to a smaller stadium but the owners of their previous stadium Townsville Ent Centre are talking about reducing the hire costs for the Crocs to get them back so hopefully that is something that will keep them around.

[Brodlach]

Another good win to Adelaide. Nine in a row

[Grahaml]

NBL games coming up on TV this weekend:

Friday night: Melbourne @ Sydney at 9:30pm (One)

Sunday afternoon: Sydney @ Melbourne at 2pm (Ten)

Are these programmed months in advance or something? Two out of form bottom half teams who won't play finals.

Surely the 36ers going for 9 in a row and playing some red hot hoops is going to be a better option for TV. Albeit I am bias toward them

Yeah unfortunately Ten program their schedules before the start of the season and don't budge from that, so you can kinda understand as Melb Utd were expected to be a championship contender and the Kings a playoff contender with Childress. But there should be some flexibility as 36ers/Wildcats tonight would've been a good opportunity.

I suspect that a lot of it is to do with providing equal coverage too. As the AFL have shown, if you preference some sides more than others the ones being shown get stronger and stronger while those with less coverage struggle. NBL is far from strong enough to entertain that model IMHO. Still a shame though, I understand.

Great to see the 36ers keeping it going against strong opposition. Would be nice to head into the finals with a 10 game streak. Not sure what the sums are for losing 3rd though. Might be a temptation to rest some blokes but I'd probably rather they keep going bar perhaps the last quarter for the starters.

[Gozu]

I think to stay in 3rd spot we need to beat the Hawks tomorrow or if we lose the Wildcats need to lose their last game too because even though the season series was split 2-2 with the Wildcats they won it on points differential.

Fantastic win last night and even though Motum got some sort of calf injury he was expected to play tomorrow. Personally I would let him sit out and maybe rest a few others because I think finishing 4th and playing the Taipans in the SF would be better than playing the Breakers although if you finish 3rd and we won our playoff series and the Wildcats in 4th won their playoff series too the 3rd ranked team would have home court advantage in the GF over the 4th ranked team. Also the Breakers swept the Wildcats 4-0 during the season so I would imagine they too would prefer to play the Taipans in the SF.

Should be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

[Brodlach]

And then it was 10 in a row

105-85. Could have won by so much more but they took the foot off the pedal

Bring on the finals!

[Gozu]

And then it was 10 in a row

105-85. Could have won by so much more but they took the foot off the pedal

Bring on the finals!

That's not bad form to take into the playoffs, 10 game winning streak!

Good move to rest Motum too to give him a little bit of rest in what will be a tough series against the Breakers.

[Brodlach]

Play Breakers in NZ on Thursday, back here Saturday and if required in NZ on Monday

[wristwatcher]

Play Breakers in NZ on Thursday, back here Saturday and if required in NZ on Monday

I'm not familiar with the structure. If we win do we go to a 3 game prelim final series against the loser of the other semi finals?

[Gozu]

Play Breakers in NZ on Thursday, back here Saturday and if required in NZ on Monday

I'm not familiar with the structure. If we win do we go to a 3 game prelim final series against the loser of the other semi finals?

Nah the winner of each SF series goes into the Grand Final series. Lose your SF series season over.

It's always been a bit disappointing for me how quickly the NBL playoffs go. In total there can be as few as 6 playoff games if both SF series and GF series are sweeps or max 9 games if they all go the distance.

Last season:

SF: Perth (1) def Wollongong (4) 2-0

SF: Adelaide (2) def Melbourne (3) 2-1

GF: Perth def Adelaide 2-1

[Gozu]

Round 20 results:

Melbourne 91 (Kickert 19, McRae 16, Walker 15, Corletto 13, Worthington 11) def Sydney 88 (Garlepp 22, Brandt 16, Cadee 16, Joyce 15, Perry 12)

Townsville 82 (Blanchfield 16, Conklin 15, Norton 12, Gladness 11) def Wollongong 66 (Ervin 19, Carson 15)

Adelaide 101 (Motum 25, Wilson 25, Creek 17, Petrie 10) def Perth 94 (Beal 23, Knight 20, Redhage 17, Jervis 11)

Melbourne 95 (Worthington 26, Kickert 21, McRae 15, Corletto 13) def Sydney 92 (Cadee 23, Garlepp 23, Perry 18, Ellis 14)

Cairns 81 (Wilbekin 25, Loughton 22, Gliddon 13, Tragardh 13) def New Zealand 77 (Ibekwe 17, Webster 16, Jackson 12)

Perth 81 (Daniels 24, Redhage 16, Jervis 14, Beal 10) def Townsville 71 (Conklin 17, Blanchfield 14, Markovic 14, Steindl 11)

Adelaide 105 (Wilson 23, Creek 21, Gibson 16, Petrie 13, Johnson 11, Schenscher 11) def Wollongong 85 (Martin 14, Carson 13, Ervin 11, Hill 11)

[Gozu]

Semi-Finals:

Cairns (1) v Perth (4)

Game 1 Friday, 27 February 7:30pm Cairns Taipans vs Perth Wildcats (Cairns Convention Centre)

Game 2 Sunday, 1 March 6:30pm Perth Wildcats vs Cairns Taipans (Perth Arena)

Game 3 (If necessary) Tuesday, 3 March 7:30pm Cairns Taipans vs Perth Wildcats (Cairns Convention Centre)



New Zealand (2) v Adelaide (3)

Game 1 Thursday, 26 February 7:30pm New Zealand Breakers vs Adelaide 36ers (Vector Arena)

Game 2 Saturday, 28 February 7:30pm Adelaide 36ers vs New Zealand Breakers (Adelaide Arena)

Game 3 (If Necessary) Monday, 2 March 7:30pm New Zealand Breakers vs Adelaide 36ers (Vector Arena)


ALL TIMES LOCAL

[Grahaml]

I'm usually a believer in the better team over the year being favoured in finals. Amazing how often the team with the better season long record wins, regardless of recent form. However, the one exception to that seems to be when a side just has a long, sustained period of strong form. 10 wins in a row, we've got to be looking at this as a season we can win it all. Got all the pieces working together nicely it seems, Johnson got some good minutes and hopefulyl found a bit of touch in the last game. You know you're going ok when you've got a bloke coming off the bench with NBA experience and he's probably not even the first big off the pine! I think Gibson is the key for the finals. He is the guy whose output has been down and so that's where the obvious lift can come from. Wilson can get to the paint, the bigs are going to be dangerous all game long but we need that 3 point shooting and calm ball handling presence when we don't want Wilson's break neck pace for a stretch.

[king neptune]

The Playoffs structure really is poor. Play 1 sometimes 2 games a week all season then cram a potential 3 game series over 5 days. I understand why they do it but jeez it's crap.

Also wouldn't be a bad thing if the GF series was a best of 5 IMO.

[Gozu]

It's appalling how quickly the NBL goes through it's playoffs. The NBA's playoffs drag on forever and I realise the NBL teams can't afford anything like that but the SF series and GF series should be spaced out more. The GF series went to best of 5 in 2004 through to 2009 but when the league went under the stewardship of Basketball Australia it went back to best of 3 in 2010 and has been that way since. Supposedly the clubs wanted that because the costs of a best of 5 series were too onerous but surely in a 2-2-1 format with Games 1/2 and 3/4 played closely together with about a week's break between both batches of games, it could work.

Some of those best of 5 GF's were great to watch too.

2004: Sydney def West Sydney 3-2
2005: Sydney def Wollongong 3-0
2006: Melbourne def Sydney 3-0
2007: Brisbane def Melbourne 3-1
2008: Melbourne def Sydney 3-2
2009: South Dragons def Melbourne 3-2

FWIW, since then:

2010: Perth def Wollongong 2-1
2011: NZ Breakers def Cairns 2-1
2012: NZ Breakers def Perth 2-1
2013: NZ Breakers def Perth 2-0
2014: Perth def Adelaide 2-1

[Gozu]

It seems all of the playoff games are being shown on delay so if you want to watch the 36ers games as live just remember Game 1 is being played in NZ at 5pm our time tomorrow (4.5 hour delay) and Game 2 here in Adelaide on Saturday night is being played at 7:30pm (2 hour delay).

NBL playoff games coming up on TV:

Thursday night: Game 1 Adelaide @ NZ Breakers at 9:30pm (One)

Friday night: Game 1 Perth @ Cairns at 9:30pm (One)

Saturday night: Game 2 NZ Breakers @ Adelaide at 9:30pm (One)

Sunday night: Game 2 Cairns @ Perth at 9:30pm (One)

[Gozu]

Go you 36ers!

3 hours until game time but I'll be avoiding the internet & TV and then watch it fresh at 9.30pm, hopefully

[Gozu]

Bad news for the Wildcats hopes of going back-to-back with veteran Shawn Redhage ruled out for the rest of the season with a stress fracture in his foot.

Also fittingly ahead of the start of tonight's playoff series the 36ers Joey Wright has been named NBL coach of the month for February and NZ Breaker Cedric Jackson was named player of the month.