GF Game 3 Preview: Melbourne United vs Perth Wildcats

When: 7.30pm (AEST), Friday 25 June

Where: John Cain Arena, Melbourne

Broadcast: SBS Viceland; ESPN; Sky Sports NZ; SBS On Demand; Twitch


The last time
Melbourne 83 (Goulding 21, Baba 15, Landale 12, Lual-Acuil 10) d Perth 74 (Mooney 17, Blanchfield 13, Norton 12, White 12), Grand Final Game 2, RAC Arena, Perth

The Wildcats once again had their chances to pinch a home win– leading by 10 at quarter-time and seven in the shadows of half-time – but a tired Todd Blanchfield, some wayward three-point shooting and a lack of depth without Bryce Cotton, Clint Steindl and Luke Travers ultimately cost them. Foul trouble limited Chris Goulding but he delivered plenty of daggers whilst on court, and Jock Landale put aside a poor offensive night to rip down 17 boards and prevent Perth’s clear advantage on the glass becoming a match-winning one.


The now
The Wildcats were much-improved in the possession game on Sunday after losing that battle in Game 1, however the biggest factor for Perth is whether Steindl and Travers can suit up to give them enough firepower and versatility to match Melbourne. John Mooney, Mitch Norton and Kevin White were excellent offensively in Game 2, but Jesse Wagstaff’s continued shooting woes are making it difficult to take the heat off Blanchfield.

While Game 2 was tense, the reality is United dominated after quarter-time, cracking the tiring Wildcats’ defence as they founds ways to attack the interior. Goulding and Landale have made big plays in big moments, and Mitch McCarron has stepped up as a playmaker as the series has progressed, but Melbourne’s bench is difference maker, playing 50 per cent more minutes than Perth’s reserves and scoring almost twice as many points.


The stats

 - The United bench has an average plus-minus of +9.2 in the grand final series, compared to their starters’ +2.8. They lead bench scoring 64-34, including a 41-16 dominance in Game 2

 - After quarter-time on Sunday, Melbourne shot 48 per cent, took 67 per cent of their attempts from inside and got to the foul line 22 times. In the opening five quarters they shot 40 per cent, took 47 per cent of their shots from outside and had just 8 free-throw attempts

 - Perth grabbed 16 offensive rebounds in Game 2 compared to eight in the opening game, and committed 10 turnovers in Sunday’s rematch compared to 17 in Game 1. They were +4 on possession points after being -26 in the series starter

 - Kevin White has shot 6-of-11 from long range in this series, while his teammates have managed just 9-of-39. In losses this season Perth average 7.7 triples at 30 per cent, compared to 10.1 at 36 per cent in wins


The key men

Todd Blanchfield – While credit must go to Melbourne’s mob of perimeter defenders for slowing Blanchfield in Game 2, he hit a string of tough shots in the opener that he couldn’t replicate en route to a 3-of-19 shocker, particularly with Steindl no longer attracting defensive attention. Perth’s bigs need to be more of a target on the roll and pop to draw the help defence away and give Vinnie more driving and pull-up options, as his 37 free-throw attempts in the past four games have been crucial in keeping the Wildcats’ offence ticking.

Dave Barlow – Mason Peatling has had a strong year by any development player’s standards. However, after a strong opener against the Phoenix he was owned by Mitch Creek and has struggled with Perth’s bigs, going -19 in the grand final while Barlow has been +21. The 37 year-old is 24-of-46 from distance since the start of May, is Melbourne’s most accurate marksmen in the series and an extra playmaker, while at the other end Perth shot 27 per cent with Barlow on court in Game 2 and 52 per cent with him resting.


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">?<br><br>?<br><br>The buckets are starting to drop now.<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/deQ7sydWqR">pic.twitter.com/deQ7sydWqR</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1405853748317065218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 18, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>



The quotes

The question was simple, whether Kevin White is feeling good about his jumpshot at the moment, and the answer was even simpler.

“Yep,” he responded, before joking he really doesn’t have a choice at this point.

“Trev’s in my ear every day to shoot the ball. Right now we really don’t have any other options, so I've got to shoot it.

“This offence, what Trev has in place here is designed for people to get open shots and if everyone does their job you're going to get open shots.”

The challenge for Perth, as they look to extend the Grand Final to four games, is how they are going to get their number one shooter, Todd Blanchfield, open against United’s physical defence.

In that regard, how this area of game is called is absolutely crucial for the Cats, as shown in Game 2.

With quick whistles early in the contest, and Melbourne picking up seven fouls in the opening term, Perth piled on 28 points.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">WHITE.<br>H?T.<a href="https://twitter.com/kevoooo22?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@kevoooo22</a> is cooking in the Jungle!<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/emEKadtafh">pic.twitter.com/emEKadtafh</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1406514735214854146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


However, with United not whistled for a single foul in the opening four minutes of the second stanza – and the Wildcats managing just 2 points – coach Gleeson burned a technical foul.

The result was three whistles on Melbourne in the next 24 seconds, with Perth going to the foul line for six attempts in the next six minutes.

With Gleeson knowing he can only afford one tech per game, he followed coach Dean Vickerman’s semi-final lead by publicly campaigning in the post-game press conference.

“There’s a lot of grabbing going on, you might see me acting like a fool in the second quarter but they're just grabbing and holding the cutters, it’s a free kick in AFL,” he said.

“There’s a lot of grabbing and holding and it’s pretty easy to defend when you can do that.”

In reality, with 5000 partisan Melbourne fans permitted in the stadium for Game 3, the Wildcats will need to find ways to play through the physicality, with their inside-outside game crucial.

“A few times we rolled it into John (Mooney), he’s a great player and he finds players on the perimeter and we take advantage of that,” White said.

“It comes from the offence, it comes from your teammates and we've just got to continue to move this ball and shoot the ball if you’re open.”

Mooney was outstanding in Game 2, responding perfectly to Jock Landale’s ‘too small’ putdown in the opener to finish with 17 points at 53 per cent and 3 assists.

In contrast Landale, who stepped into a competition missing arguably the three best interior defenders from NBL20 in Andrew Bogut, Nick Kay and Will Magnay, went 3-of-9 and coughed up 4 turnovers, struggling to score in his one-on-one battles with Magnay.


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">TWO-WAY MAGNAY.<br><br>Denial ?? Dunk ??<br><br>End to end action from the <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PerthWildcats</a>&#39; <a href="https://twitter.com/MagnayWill?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MagnayWill</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/jkUQGkMBcg">pic.twitter.com/jkUQGkMBcg</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1406519613106528259?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Yet while Landale himself came up short offensively, he was enormous on the boards. Perth grabbed a whopping 16 offensive boards – 34 per cent of those available – but that figure may have been significantly higher if not for Jock’s 15 d-boards.

He also had two important tap-outs at the offensive end that resulted in triples, as Melbourne made the most of any Wildcat lapse to drain a match-winning 10-of-23 from the arc, Chris Goulding and Yudai Baba landing 7-of-13 between them.

With Goulding nailing 9 treys across the opening two games, Perth’s breakdowns on the Boomers star have proved costly, and they can’t afford a repeat with a big home crowd ready to explode on every Bubbles bomb.

“There’s just a few key areas, Game 1 we miss a rotation, Barlow hits a three, we miss another rotation, Goulding hits a three,” White said.

“It’s a couple of possessions where we know with good teams you can’t take a possession off and it happened again tonight.

“We got the game back to three points, they threw it into Jock, Toddy’s under the rim and I'm sitting on the weakside and Hopson cuts to my face and gets a lay-up, it goes back out to a five-point game.

“Possessions like that we can’t take off we need every possession to be a win for us. We continued to battle through this, the effort’s there it’s just cleaning up those little areas.”



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr">? <a href="https://t.co/mSg5PYjxTH">https://t.co/mSg5PYjxTH</a> <a href="https://t.co/fscgDCKpSX">pic.twitter.com/fscgDCKpSX</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1406532577930874884?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Melbourne’s offence broke the shackles as the game wore on last Sunday, highlighted by their 22 free-throw attempts in the final 30 minutes, a repeat of which would be a championship clincher.

“There was a good intent for us to put our feet in the paint and create some contact tonight and pleasing to be pretty balanced with our attack,” coach Vickerman said.

“We make the 10 threes, 24 free throws, 17 assists, there are some really good numbers there that tick some boxes for us.”

There is now one last box to tick for a championship season that was predicted very early in the piece by Landale, and the star centre would love to be cutting down the nets on Friday.

“To be playing in front of our home crowd, in front of family and friends, it’s special,” he said.

“It's so hard to close out a series of basketball, we do have to step it up another notch because Perth sure as hell will.

“To be in the position we are right now where it’s the chance to win a season, we didn’t go undefeated but the chance to win the premiership is massive for us.”


<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Inspired stuff from Norto, playing through injury to keep the Cats in this thing ?<a href="https://twitter.com/mitch_norton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mitch_norton</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/Dnu29lh84C">pic.twitter.com/Dnu29lh84C</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1406528708526047237?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


While Melbourne wait on Jo Lual-Acuil's fitness, it would be massive for Perth to have Norton, Steindl and Travers on the floor. Coach Gleeson rates Steindl as “very doubtful” and is unsure about Travers, but it would take something remarkable to keep Norton on the sidelines.

His fighting spirit has typified the Wildcats’ gutsy Grand Final performance – Perth are +3 with their point guard on the floor and -15 with him resting – and Mitch McCarron isn’t expecting anything less on Friday.

“This team plays so hard,” he said.

“They came out tonight and started hot and were making shots and I expect them to do that every single game. I know a lot of people expect them to get run over but I just don’t think it’s going to happen.

“They play too hard for that, so we’re expecting another battle for Game 3.”