Five Burning Questions for the Grand Final Series

By Liam Santamaria.

The stage is set.

Melbourne United and the Perth Wildcats will tip off the Grand Final Series Friday night in an epic conclusion to what has been a wild 2021 NBL season.

For the Wildcats, an opportunity to make history and claim their first ever three-peat is just three wins away.

For United, well they have been the favourites all year and will carry that weight of expectation into RAC Arena.

So will Melbourne cruise to the championship as many seem to believe? Or will the Wildcats continue to prove the doubters wrong and pull off an incredible upset?

Here are five burning questions that could, ultimately, define the series.

 

Can Perth score enough?

This is probably the biggest query coming into the series.

With the league’s leading scorer sitting on the sidelines and up against the competition’s best defence, will Perth be able to generate enough points to trouble this talented United squad?

Let’s put this discussion into some context.

Across their first 32 games the Wildcats ranked second in the league in scoring, averaging 88.5 points per game.

What’s remarkable about that is the Wildcats play with the competition’s slowest pace.

The same has been true this year as it has been throughout most of the Trevor Gleeson era: there are just less possessions in games involving Perth than there are against other squads. Why? Well because their D forces teams to regularly use a lot of shot clock and then, more often than not, they walk the ball up the floor, move it through hands and meticulously execute their stuff.

And yet, with Cotton on the floor, this squad was still putting up numbers. Bryce made such a massive difference at the offensive end that the Wildcats led the league in offensive efficiency, and by some margin, averaging 119.2 points per 100 possessions per spatialjam.com.

Since Cotton’s injury, however, that scoring has dropped away. In fact, across their past seven games the ‘Cats have produced just 75.7 points per game at just 105.4 points per 100 possessions.

Now, that may have been enough against Illawarra but, let’s be clear, it’s not going to get it done in this series. Remember when the Cotton-less Wildcats went down to United two weeks ago? Melbourne completely locked them up in that game, restricting the ‘Cats to a season-low 64 points.

“If any of these games are in the nineties, good luck Perth,” the legendary Andrew Gaze stated on The Huddle podcast this week.

“Ninety plus is going to be very tough for the Perth Wildcats. With the defence that Melbourne United are going to play, who is it from the Wildcats that’s going to get you those points? It’s not there.

“Whereas you look at the skill-sets of Melbourne United and you can easily see that there’s enough offensive talent that, even against good defence, they’re easily going to get into the nineties.

“Perth must control the tempo – and they do that with their offence – in order to keep it in the seventies or eighties.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">? The. Stage. Is. Set ?<br><br>Only 2? teams left and it all begins this Friday.<a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PerthWildcats</a> ? <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MelbUnitedHQ</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBLFinals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBLFinals</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/LNyRHl91bM">pic.twitter.com/LNyRHl91bM</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1404764668946620416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 15, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


 

Who wins the possession game?

This is where the Wildcats must dominate to give themselves a chance.

With the talent gap between these teams heavily favoured towards Melbourne, Trevor Gleeson’s men must consistently generate extra scoring opportunities via their effort on defence and on the glass.

The problem is, however, Melbourne is also an outstanding rebounding team.

Perth led the league in offensive rebounding percentage this season but United were right there behind them in second place. They also led the comp in defensive rebounding percentage with, yep you guessed it, Perth ranking second.

What does that mean? The Wildcats will need to pressure United into plenty of turnovers and find a way to dominate the glass if they’re to compete in this series.

In other words, ‘Wildcats Basketball’ will need to be on absolute overdrive.

“If Melbourne has the same amount of possessions as the Wildcats, just with their talent and their depth, I think they’re going to get it done,” Perth great Damian Martin said on The Huddle.

“But if Perth can win that possession count with rebounds, steals and loose balls, they’re a real chance.

“They will pride themselves on crashing the boards at both ends and knowing how important it is to the overall result.”

 

Who wins the Mooney/Landale match-up?

It’s often said that finals games are all about match-ups and this one is the marquee match-up of the series.

John Mooney vs Jock Landale. They’ve been the two best big men all season long and, to nobody’s surprise, were this week selected into the ‘inside’ positions of the All-NBL First Team.

Mooney has been a revelation. The first year pro led the league in rebounding across the season and was a double-double machine as he held down the interior for the Wildcats.

The thing is: the Wildcats will need Mooney to score and he’s found that really difficult since Cotton went down.

With the MVP alongside him, Mooney averaged 18 points per game at 55 per cent shooting from the field and an incredible (and entirely unsustainable) 54 per cent from three.

Since Cotton went down, however, those numbers have dropped to 14.6 points per game at 49.5 per cent and just 23 per cent from long range.

He’s not getting anywhere near as open as often as he did when teams were throwing double-teams at Bryce on the perimeter.

Landale, on the other hand, is trending in the opposite direction.

The talented big man was the game-leading scorer in both of Melbourne’s semi-final wins with his dangerous inside-outside game giving South East Melbourne fits.

He’s a handful on the block, of course, but his three-point shooting is particularly hot right now.

Over his past nine games Landale has knocked down 2.2 triples a game at a blistering 60 per cent clip. That kind of efficiency is, of course, just as unsustainable as Mooney’s early season form but the important point here is that Landale is on fire right now! He’s entering this series in terrific form and feels supremely confident in his ability to stretch the floor.

That is a massive problem for Perth as this match-up is arguable the key to the series.

“If Landale and Mooney are both superstars and cancel each other out, that’s a win for Melbourne,” Damian Martin said.

“Perth need Mooney to be the best big on the court every single game because Melbourne can rely on ten other guys to be the leading scorer that night.

“Perth need Mooney at his best and cancelling out Landale or bettering him.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">????? ????? ?????<br><br>The Perth Wildcats have secured a spot in the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> Grand Final, their 9th Grand Final appearance in the last 12 seasons! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BuiltForFinals?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BuiltForFinals</a> <a href="https://t.co/3evbwbbK2G">pic.twitter.com/3evbwbbK2G</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1404435999665508353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Is Todd Blanchfield ready for this moment?

Another thing that Perth need is a huge series from Blanchfield.

The 29-year-old wing is playing his 12th season in the NBL and, in his debut year out west, is stepping out for his first Grand Final Series.

This is his moment.

The Wildcats desperately need Blanchfield to be a force at the offensive end as they run him off actions that would normally be run for Cotton. Flex cuts, down screens, staggered screens along the baseline… Blanchfield will be peeling off all kinds of picks away from the ball and his ability to score off those actions will be key.

It’s not just about his shooting, either. Blanchfield will need to get work done from long range, of course, but the ‘Cats will also need him to get to the foul line. They’ll need him to turn the corner off some of those picks – especially ball-screens and dribble-hand-offs – and get into the lane to put pressure on the D. Those kind of attacks will draw fouls on Melbourne’s bigs and will also bring guys like Mooney and Magnay into the mix as offensive rebounding threats.

Of course, Blanchfield will receive serious defensive attention from Dean Vickerman’s men.

In previous match-ups that job has mostly fallen to Chris Goulding but with Cotton out of the picture you’d imagine Melbourne will give stoppers like Sam McDaniel and Yudai Baba plenty of minutes on Blanch. His ability to overcome that pressure will be a huge key to the series.

 

Who will be the X-Factor?

Even without Cotton on the floor, there is plenty of star power ready to shine under the bright lights of a championship series.

The Landale vs Mooney match-up will be key, as will the battle of the Mitches at the point guard position. Chris Goulding is a former Grand Final MVP and we’ve already highlighted how crucial Blanchfield will be.

But who else will step up?

For Perth, teenage prodigy Luke Travers has been brilliant in recent times while Magnay has the potential to get work done on the glass. Clint Steindl and Jesse Wagstaff are others who can provide game-changing production off the bench.

That depth is even larger for United.

I mean, there’s is a squad that runs legitimately 11 deep with everyone comfortable in their roles at both ends of the floor.

That said, the two biggest candidates to provide x-factor production are definitely Scotty Hopson and Jo Lual-Acuil.

Hopson has scored in double-figures in 10 of Melbourne’s past 15 games and just looks like his old self again when he checks in off the bench.

He’s also shooting the heck out of the ball! In fact, Hopson has drained nearly two threes a game over his past 12 outings on a white hot 49 per cent clip. I think he’s going to have a massive series.

Lual-Acuil, meanwhile, will be entering the Grand Final after being named Best Sixth Man at Wednesday’s Awards night.

He has scored in double-digits in seven of Melbourne’s past nine games and he gave the ‘Cats the business in Round 21 as he scored 16 points in just 14 minutes on the floor.

Who will step up under the pressure of a best-of-five Grand Final Series? We’re about to find out.