How to watch & talking points: Adelaide v Tasmania

02 Jan 2026

adelaide 36ers

tasmania jackjumpers

League-leaders Adelaide host a re-energised Tasmania JackJumpers in a blockbuster Friday clash with Finals ramifications.

Adelaide 36ers (1st) v Tasmania JackJumpers (6th)
Friday, January 8, 7.30pm AEDT
Adelaide Entertainment Centre

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Tickets

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Talking points

The new Tasmania
‍A fit and healthy Tasmania team has looked completely different to the battered and bruised side that struggled to compete at the beginning of the season. Their offence is clicking now that David Johnson is back in his groove, Will Magnay is being aggressive, and Bryce Hamilton continues to shine. However, it’s that defensive JackJumpers mindset that has been a staple of their existence, which has them poised to strike. Scott Roth’s team has the added pressure of looking over their shoulder at some of the teams trying to take sixth spot from them, but it feels as if they have bigger goals in mind now that they are whole.

What is Adelaide’s ceiling?
‍At this point in the season, each team starts to show where they are truly at and everyone gets a better picture of just who can really contend for a title. The big question now for the best team in the league is how much better can they get? DJ Vasiljevic said on NBL Now that his team still has improvement to show on the defensive end and if the 36ers can in fact build on that, then they become an even more dangerous proposition. With just over a month left in the regular season, it’s all about building towards playing your best basketball at the business end and that’s something Mike Wells will be preaching to his group.

What they're saying

Adelaide guard Dejan Vasiljevic on his team finding extra motivation:
"You look at the first part of the season, it was Melbourne United [people were speaking about].

“I feel like now they're talking about the Sydney Kings, so we're still not talked about yet.

“[Despite that] we're trying to not to be complacent and we're just trying to keep doing what we do best.

"There's always room for improvement, and when people don't talk about us, it's the best because it motivates us more to keep kind of going.

“In a basketball sense, we want to get better as athletes, and we understand we still have a lot to do. We feel like we can get a bit better defensively, so we'll just keep doing what we can.

“We still have 10 games in the regular season to kind of get to where we want to and then obviously start the Playoff front.”

Tasmania coach Scott Roth on his team's growth:
"We're growing and we're moving the needle in the right direction and it's not always going to perfect, and unfortunately we've had a few that we haven’t got across the line, but we're very competitive.

"I think that's something that we continue to talk about and always have since I've been here that our competitive spirit is very, very high.

"We've been competing and we've been knocked down, but we've got back and come back after people the next game.

"That competitive spirit will take you quite a long way and it would have been easy in this stretch we've just had to get deterred and get down, or get in internal about it not going so well, but our guys whether we win or lose they just show up the next day, drop their heads and go back to work.

"I've been saying it for as long as I've been here, we just stack days and build great habits, and hopefully those will last us through the season as we build towards the end, and if we are lucky enough to do the things and do the right things, we could be a handful.