Melbourne United have officially begun their journey towards the NBL21 Championship.
With a strong win over an interestingly constructed Adelaide 36ers squad.
Melbourne won the game 89-65 after blowing Adelaide out in the second half, however that implies that Adelaide had kept up with them in the first two quarters, which scoreboard wise is technically correct, but in terms of rhythem and ability to get into what they want to do, Adelaide were way behind.
The First Quarter
To start the game it was instantly noticeable that Melbourne United had been training together and had built a lot more cohesion then their South Australian opponents.
The Melbourne starters got straight into their flow offense and appeared to be happy letting plays develop and making the right reads. On defence is was much the same, not trying to hard to early, but slowly building into a consistent and flowing rhythem.
Adelaide on the other hand looked quite rusty. Sloan and Crocker both had questionable moments as they adjust to the league. Simple things such as leaving Chris Goulding open or driving directly into Jock Landale are things they will quickly learn to avoid.
Crocker looked good early, his shot was not falling but he was dynamic, engaged and very fundamentally sound on defence, these things continued in throughout the game, including the shot not falling.
Second Quarter
The second quarter was full of flashes for both teams as Giddey made some quality reads on defense and offense.
Melbourne went to some incredibly impressive sets involving some Chris Goulding DHO's, however they also tried to get Scotty Hopson going but he appears to be slightly rusty. Fortunately for Melbourne United it doesn't matter what Scotty Hopson looks like in January.
Adelaide had further issues with their apparent lack of scouting advice as Shea Illi was able to blow up some pick and roll actions several times as Sloan was maybe to complacent towards the United back up guard.
Crocker continued to look good in every aspect of his game except the ball actually going into the hoop, which is unfortunately the most important part.
"He just needs to find his feet" - Andrew Gaze
A much more concerning part of this game was Adelaide's absolute lack of dribble penetration and paint scoring.
Donald Sloan looked absolutely incapable of scoring in the paint, and even appeared to avoid going near the rim when opportunities presented themselves.
Third Quarter
The third quarter can be best described by Conner Henry putting out a lineup that included two big-men, one 18 year old, a guy that had shot 1-8 throughout the game and Sunday Dech.
Not exactly a group that inspires offense.
Melbourne continued to build from a good first half as they really started to force turnovers and start up their transition game.
This of course highlighted Japanese born Yudai Baba who might be one of the quickest guys in the league. This aspect to Melbourne's offense further proves that they can really contend this year as they have plenty of options, even if a primary action isn't working on any particular night.
4th Quarter
Adelaide 36er fans have probably already stopped reading much like I'm assuming they stopped watching as the offense absolutely fell apart, this creates a feedback loop of easy transition looks for Melbourne and really blew out the scoreboard.
However, it isn't all doom and gloom as we saw some really dynamic flashes from Jack McVeigh. McVeigh is absolutely poised for a big uptick in minutes next game as he was always engaged and was the only player not named Daniel Johnson who played hard right up until the end.
He does have some serious issues with shot selection as it seems like he believes every shot is a good shot. This is not true.
Overall we saw basically what was expected, a solid and we'll prepared team full of extreme talent taking on an ill-equipped squad of lesser talent.
Comments
Post a Comment