United close out NBL21 with win in Adelaide

Melbourne United has cruised to their 28th win to close the NBL season in style with a 102-80 victory against the Adelaide 36ers at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Sunday.

It was a home game away from home for Melbourne with them unable to host the game inside Victoria thanks to the COVID-19 lockdown, but it made little difference even if United coach threw out most of his second unit as starters to open the contest.

Melbourne still scored the opening eight points of the game with Jo Lual-Acuil delivering six of those and the 36ers never really got themselves back into the contest to the point where they were a chance of ending their season on a winning note.

United locked in the regular season championship by beating the Wildcats in Perth on Friday night and now they have ensured themselves of winning form entering the finals from top spot closing out with a 28-8 record as they await their opponents and destination of their semi finals.

It turned out a disappointing season that at times promised so much for Adelaide with the 36ers ending it on a seven-game losing streak with a 13-23 record, but that has largely been without imposing centre Isaac Humphries and the NBA-bound Next Star Josh Giddey.

United coach Dean Vickerman rewarded his second unit by throwing most of them into the starting five as Jo Lual-Acuil, David Barlow, Scotty Hopson and Shea Ili joining Sam McDaniel, and it worked with the fast start setting up the eventual win.

Hopson enjoyed his chance to play some extra minutes racking up 30 of them on his way to 19 points on 8/13 shooting from the field and 3/6 from downtown.

Jock Landale still had a significant impact in 24 minutes with 19 points and nine rebounds while Jo Lual-Acuil finished with 16 points and four boards, Shea Ili 11 points, eight assists and seven rebounds, and Mason Peatling eight points, six boards and three assists.

Chris Goulding might have uncharacteristically not hit a three in seven attempts on Friday in Perth, but he went 4/6 from deep on Sunday in Adelaide for 12 points and five assists.

Melbourne coach Dean Vickerman couldn’t have asked to get much more from the last game of the regular season.

"We started the game with our white squad which is certainly the group in practice that goes against the starters every day and I just wanted to rewarded them," Vickerman said. 

"I thought they'd been amazing all year, they'd made some sacrifices with their minutes at different times and with their roles, and I just thought that group needed to be rewarded today. 

"I thought they got us off to a good start, they executed well and then obviously the plan was to get good minutes into everybody. If they're good to go then you need to play people and we got good value out of playing a good opponent today. 

"There was some situations in the game where we had to fix some things and I thought we fixed them quite quickly and were able to continue to push the margin out. 

"We probably didn’t rebound the way we wanted so that's something we need to a bit of a better job of moving forward but we did some good things by sharing the basketball and it was good to see 27 assists there."

Tony Crocker caught fire for Adelaide in his best output of the season with 27 points including hitting 6/8 from three-point territory while Daniel Johnson wrapped up yet another standout consistent campaign with 18 points and 13 rebounds.

Brandon Paul put up 14 points as well for the 36ers, Daniel Dillon eight points and six assists, and Jack McVeigh six points, two assists and two steals.

Adelaide coach Conner Henry was disappointed the Sixers didn’t take the opportunity to finish their season on a more positive note.

"We started slow and I had to burn an early timeout. That lifted our energy a little bit and then we did get some lift off the bench with a couple of guys who bought in," Henry said. 

"We could never close the gap, though, and it's disappointing. You look at the stats and there's a lot of things that are glaring there mainly being that we couldn’t stop them in the paints whether their guards were getting in there or their bigs were finishing. 

"It's a disappointing way to end it and I think we have a lot of work to do in the future and I'm excited about the future. We'll see how it plays out."

Melbourne started with most of their usual second unit and it worked a treat with Jo Lual-Acuil hitting three quick baskets and David Barlow also scoring for the 8-0 start.

Brandon Paul hit six quick points for Adelaide and then Tony Crocker came on for 10 opening quarter points, but still Melbourne racked up the points and would lead 28-20 by quarter-time on the back of a pair of threes from Shea Ili while Mitch McCarron and Scotty Hopson also hit from downtown.

Chris Goulding then knocked down three three-pointers of his own to open the second quarter while Jock Landale and Hopson also hit from long-range as Melbourne opened up a 17-point lead, and still led by 13 at the half despite Adelaide getting 14 points and nine rebounds from Daniel Johnson.

Adelaide flirted with a comeback to start the second half with Keanu Pinder and Crocker helping them back within eight points, but they would get no closer.

Landale came out to dominate the opening part of the second half with 10 quick points and Melbourne remained in control leading by 16 points at three quarter-time before cruising to the eventual 22-point victory.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 21

MELBOURNE UNITED 102 (Hopson 19, Landale 19, Lual-Acuil 16)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 80 (Crocker 27, Johnson 18, Paul 14) 

BOX SCORE