How United plan to limit MVP's impact

Luke Travers knows Bryce Cotton as well as anyone, and even he has run out of answers for stopping him.

Melbourne United are arguably the hottest team in the competition right now, and Travers knows a big test awaits when they travel to Adelaide on Thursday night.

“It’s a pretty hostile environment, and especially after we got one in their crowd,” he said during Tuesday’s media availability.

“They’re going to come in a little bit more hot, so we expect a very intense and fiery matchup.”

The 36ers won the first meeting of the season at John Cain Arena, before United returned the favour in Adelaide in Round 4.

Melbourne arrive riding a four-game winning streak, but Adelaide will be full of confidence after their big win over Illawarra on Saturday night.

Travers, who spent the early part of his career alongside Cotton in Perth, understands just how hard the six-time MVP is to contain.

“I’m starting to find out that there really is no way to stop him,” he said.

“It’s just about making everything tough over the course of 40 minutes as a team.

“He’s going to make tough shots, and you kind of just got to live with it and move on to the next play.”

The flip side of focusing on Cotton is that the rest of Adelaide’s talent can take over, as Zylan Cheatham showed with his triple-double last weekend.

“I feel like the League is just so talented now that it’s not just one individual player,” Travers said.

“If we focus on Bryce too much, it’s going to be those other guys that have an impact.”

United coach Jacob Chance shared Travers’ view on the challenge.

“[Bryce’s] gravity really challenges your schemes,” Chance said.

“The real challenge becomes, if you put too much attention there, now Rakocevic, Cheatham, Flynn, Jenkins... they have a lot of good players around him.”

Thursday’s Round 9 clash at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre tips off at 7.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.