R7 Preview: Adelaide 36ers vs Melbourne United

When: 7.30pm (AEDT), Thursday 25 February

Where: John Cain Arena, Melbourne

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

The last time
Melbourne 89 (Goulding 16, Lual-Acuil 16, Ili 13) d Adelaide 65 (Johnson 27), Round 1, Adelaide Entertainment Centre

When Adelaide led by two at half-time behind some Daniel Johnson brilliance things looked promising for the home side. But the 6539-strong crowd was quickly silenced after intermission when Melbourne’s defensive unit went to work, sparking a 44-13 run that turned this contest into a rout, Shea Ili, Yudai Baba and Jo Lual-Acuil all making a big impact.

The now
Adelaide’s offence continued to struggle across the opening six weeks of the season, with their defence for the most part keeping their record at .500, but in their second NBL Cup outing all that changed, taking the Phoenix for 99 points at 52 per cent from the field to move back into the top four. The 36ers’ terrific trio was at it again, but questions persist about the supporting cast’s ability to cover for quiet nights from their superstars.

Melbourne’s defence has continued to shine and so has the depth, allowing them to do an early-season impression of the old Cardiac Kings while coming away with wins in almost every close game they’ve been in. Injuries and slow starts – United have won just one of their past six opening quarters – are the ongoing concerns, but at 7-1 they are sitting pretty with contributions coming from superstars, role players and rookies alike.


The stats

 - Since Melbourne’s Round 1 savaging of the Sixers, six of their seven games have been decided by seven points or less. In their one big win – by 13 over Brisbane – they led by one point with 4:20 to play

 - United’s reserves rank sixth for minutes played, but first for scoring (29.4ppg), field-goal percentage (49%), and both three-point makes (4.1) and conversion (47%)

 - In wins, Daniel Johnson, Isaac Humphries and Josh Giddey combine for 54.3ppg at 55 per cent, compared to 37.6ppg at 45 per cent in defeat

 - Adelaide have an offensive rating of 106.1 (eighth) and a defensive rating of 110.5 (fifth). Last season their o-rating was 114.1 (fifth) and their d-rating was 119.0 (eighth)


The key men

Yudai Baba – When Josh Giddey grabs five or more defensive boards and deals seven or more assists Adelaide are 3-1. Why? Because Giddey swooping on d-boards unleashes him in transition, where early screening action gets him into the lane, where his height allows dimes over smaller defenders to the roll of Humphries or the pop of Johnson.

However, when Giddey is forced to bring the ball up against pressure on slow plays, he’s not nearly as comfortable initiating offence, and that’s where Baba comes in. He must use his athleticism to attack the o-glass and make Giddey respect the box out, and then disrupt the New Star’s handles and force another Sixer to initiate the offence and create for their bigs.

Daniel Johnson – In the season opener DJ was unstoppable, 27 points at 53 per cent, 4-of-4 from deep and 9-of-10 from the stripe. Melbourne simply couldn’t find an answer, which is unusual. In his previous seven games against United, the Sixers skipper had managed just 13.1ppg at 41 per cent, 3-of-11 from the arc and 4.2 free-throw attempts.

Whether Johnson gets rolling could be pivotal, to open up space for Giddey to penetrate, to make helping on Humphries rolls more difficult, to take either Jock Landale or Jack White’s rim protection away from the paint and also reduce their defensive rebounding capacity. White is likely to start on DJ, can he avoid those wily fakes and stay out of foul trouble?



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Gettin&#39; Giddey with it. <a href="https://t.co/GqnJbIIQyg">pic.twitter.com/GqnJbIIQyg</a></p>&mdash; Adelaide 36ers (@Adelaide36ers) <a href="https://twitter.com/Adelaide36ers/status/1364152470285340673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 23, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The quotes

It's no secret that when Adelaide get Giddey, Humphries and Johnson working off each other they are a formidable unit. When that trio is able to engage in early on-balls before the defence is set, it usually ends in a score.

“It’s just a matter of lead big, trail big, we know that our spot is interchangeable and we can both can be really effective in that pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop situation,” Humphries said.

“Gid’s a great player and he does have that resilience, he has the ability to bounce back and move on and he’s a fighter, he wants to fight with us and he’ll make that little error and then try to redeem it, we see that a lot.

“He’s 18 and there’s little things we've got to help him with, but the god thing about Gid is he’s so happy to learn and he’ll fight and turn it around.”



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Josh ?? Isaac ?? Bucket<br><br>*Scheduled tweet. <a href="https://t.co/uBQ1ZCpCoT">pic.twitter.com/uBQ1ZCpCoT</a></p>&mdash; Adelaide 36ers (@Adelaide36ers) <a href="https://twitter.com/Adelaide36ers/status/1364158885532102658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 23, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>



When the terrific trio isn’t able to connect, coach Connor Henry freely admits his team is still a work in progress.

“We’re a young group in a new system, and sometimes we have bad days at the office probably like you do,” he said after Tuesday’s win over the Phoenix.

“We’re growing, we’ve looked really special at times, put together 40 minutes and a couple of overtime victories, today was one of those games where we were really focused and loose, and we did a lot better job of executing on the offensive end and we were a lot tougher and physical at the defensive end.”

Without genuine play-making speed anywhere on the roster, Adelaide are heavily reliant on execution, and when pressure gets to them the scoreboard can dry up, as it did in Round 1 against Melbourne as Dean Vickerman’s men bullied the 36ers.

“They were aggressive and physical and we knew that they would be, we have to dominate our space to catch the basketball, to screen, to get it through hands and share it,” Henry said.

After Adelaide had scored 31 points in the opening 15 minutes, Melbourne opened a can of defensive whoop-ass to outscore their hosts 62-34 over the next 25 minutes.

“We were started a little sluggish with our defence tonight, picked it up in the second period and I thought there was a group in the middle of the second period that played four or five minutes and held them to four points,” Vickerman said.

“There was definitely a defensive momentum that built in the second half, to hold them to 65 was really pleasing.”



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The story was similar against Cairns on Monday night in the NBL Cup, the Taipans piling on 40 points in 16 minutes before the United juggernaut woke up, outscoring Machado and Co 58-41 over the final 24 minutes.

“We wanted to make a real change about how we started the game tonight, we weren’t happy with our first quarter against Perth, but we weren’t able to do that,” Vickerman said.

“I thought it took until the middle of the second period that we threw some of our younger guys out there – Mason Peatling, Sam Short, some of these guys – gave us some amazing energy and that had an effect on the rest of the group for the second half.

“I think we held them to 17, 20, 19 over the last three quarters and anytime you can keep them under 20 for those three quarters you're doing some good things defensively.”