Preview: Melbourne v Sydney (Round 4)

When: 4pm (AEDT), Sunday 23 October, 2022
Where: John Cain Arena, Melbourne
Broadcast: ESPN; Kayo; Foxtel; 10 Peach; 10 Play; Sky NZ

Who won the last time?

Sydney 91 (Cooks 23, Vasiljevic 15, Simon 12, Soares 12) d Melbourne 71 (Barker 10, Caroline 10) – Round 2 at John Cain Arena

For United supporters, the less said about this the better, as Sydney ran up a staggering 57-23 half-time lead after being up as much as 38 in the second quarter to gain all sorts of vengeance for the beating Melbourne handed them early in NBL22. On their own home floor, Dean Vickerman’s men scored just six points in the second term as Xavier Cooks destroyed them inside and out in a dominant, athletic display.

What happened last game?

Melbourne were humbled on their home court again to open Round 4, although in very different fashion. Chris Goulding and Co controlled large stretches of the contest, pulling 14 points clear in the third term, but when it mattered they simply couldn’t put points on the board. The Kings had no trouble scoring on Friday, at least from around the hoop, but the issue was they couldn’t stop Adelaide, who proved to be road warriors after all.

What’s working?

Not much consistently – It’s very strange to see Melbourne sitting last in the NBL in shooting and eighth in offensive rebounding percentage, something that highlights their lack of sync and predictability, and perhaps a lack of effort at times. In the first half of their Round 2 embarrassment, United missed 33 field goals but grabbed just five o-boards.

Owning the paint – The Kings whooped Adelaide 58-28 in the paint, taking them to +80 in that category after six games. Star quartet Xavier Cooks, Derrick Walton, Justin Simon and DJ Vasiljevic are nailing 17.2 two-pointers at 57 per cent, while the Kings’ entire opposition is averaging just 17.5 at 44 per cent. In the first half in Round 2, they held Melbourne to a horrific 2/20 from inside the two-point arc, while scoring 22 paint points themselves.

What needs stopping?

Three-point barrages – While Sydney are owning the inside, they continue to be exploited from the arc, with opponents averaging 13 triples at 37 per cent – Adelaide landed 14 at 40 per cent in a match-winning shooting display on Friday – and the opposition’s best shooter each night dropping 3.9 treys at 68 per cent. In two wins, United have averaged 14 treys at 43 per cent, compared to 9.3 at 29 per cent in their three defeats.

Scoring droughts – Against Sydney, United managed just six points in 13 minutes bridging quarter and half-time. In Perth they scored a total nine points in 12 minutes across two dry spells. Against Tasmania their two baron runs yielded just seven points in 11 minutes, while the Taipans went 22-0 in five third-quarter minutes, and then 11-1 in the final four minutes of the game. All up, in those 45 minutes across four contests, Melbourne have been outscored 141-23. They are +91 across the season’s other 160 minutes.

Who’s matching up?

Chris Goulding v DJ Vasiljevic – After three games that produced 9.3ppg on 5/18 from deep, CG would have been pleased to drop four treys on Cairns in a 16-point outing. But given he has shot 6/19 from inside the arc, expect Vasiljevic and Co to run him off the arc and make him finish amongst the trees. DJ has taken 23 two-point attempts in Sydney’s two losses, compared to 16 in four wins, so expect Melbourne to give him the chase-off treatment too.

Rayjon Tucker v Justin Simon – After a slow start, Tucker had a strong game against Cairns, scoring 19 points at 87 per cent inside, along with 10 rebounds and some committed defence. Melbourne were +14 in his 32:55 on court, compared to -18 in the other 7:05. He only had five points on 1/11 against Simon and Sydney last time though, so the challenge for the outspoken American is to prove he can take it to such an elite defender.

Jordan Caroline v Xavier Cooks – Caroline stood up late defending Keanu Pinder on Thursday, keeping the Snakes’ star to four points on 2/6 in the final term. Given neither David Barlow nor Isaac Humphries have the mobility to guard Cooks, could we see JC back into the starting quintet, Barlow to the five-spot to drag Tim Soares away from the key, and Humphries coming off the bench in a head-to-head battle with Jordy Hunter?

Xavier Rathan-Mayes v Derrick Walton – XRM may have had a 2/8 stinker last time against Sydney, but every other game he’s been staking his claim for All-NBL honours, including 21 points on Thursday against Cairns where United were a crucial -7 in the seven minutes he sat. Walton was unstoppable on Friday with 23 points on 8/12 inside, including 5/9 on pull-ups and floaters. He’ll be licking his lips at exploiting Melbourne’s bigs on switches.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">20/20 vision ?<br><br>? LIVE on <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNAusNZ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ESPNAusNZ</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/kayosports?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@kayosports</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Foxtel?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Foxtel</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeTheKings?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeTheKings</a> <a href="https://t.co/9slLa0Culu">pic.twitter.com/9slLa0Culu</a></p>&mdash; Sydney Kings (@SydneyKings) <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings/status/1583387791941316612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Who’s saying what?

It wasn’t exactly the start to his Hungry Jack’s NBL coaching career Chase Buford was looking for, in fact it was just plain embarrassing. 

“We tried not to talk about it too much,” Buford admitted after his team’s remarkable Round 2 retribution over United.

“We certainly wanted to exorcise our demons but I didn’t think we’d come out and hand it back to them in the first half basically the same way they did to us.

“Everyone talked so much trash on us last year and we basically put the same half on them.”

For DJ Vasiljevic, the 42-point loss in Round 3 of last season was memorable for many of the wrong reasons.

“That was my first game back from the achilles (injury), so to come back and get smacked by 40 wasn’t really a good taste in my mouth,” he said.

DJ made sure it wasn’t going to happen again, not just dropping 15 points himself but holding Chris Goulding to seven on 3/10 from the field.

“I saw DJ getting up into him. We have a defensive player of the game every game, DJ’s going to be hard to beat with his defence on Goulding,” coach Buford said afterwards.

Xavier Cooks dunk that night would be hard to beat on any highlight reel, Vasiljevic’s stunned reaction telling the tale of how good it was.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">XAVIER COOKS THAT IS RIDICULOUS ????<br><br>Get that on repeat <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SydneyKings</a> fans<br><br>Catch the action on 10 Peach, 10play and Kayo Freebies <a href="https://t.co/Bv0AATP6NW">pic.twitter.com/Bv0AATP6NW</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1578984492907495426?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“He punched it on that man real bad, that’s probably the best dunk I’ve ever seen,” DJ laughed post-game.

Melbourne had no answer for the X-man that day, his open-court athleticism matched by his 3/5 shooting from range.

“When he’s at full tilt running in transition doing the plays he does at the rim, making the passes he does, he’s just elite,” Buford said.

He’s many of many challenges the inconsistent United defence faces on Sunday as they look for their own redemption.

For Dean Vickerman, the puzzle of replacing the defensive presence of Jack White and Ariel Hukporti is still being solved.

“Cooksy was great last time and right now, some of the bigs in the league have had some good nights against us,” he said.

“Pardon had a good night against us, Pinder tonight. We’ve got to find a way to really contain their bigs and they’ve got three or four good ones.”

Sydney’s bigs are outstanding at walling up at their own defensive end, and if United go one-out again, as they did late against Cairns, it will be another low-scoring night.

“There was a period there where we were just trying to take on too much ourselves and play a little bit of hero ball,” Vickerman said.

“Some of those will show in review tomorrow where the process was terrible. That was the focus for the whole week about our process of play.”

When they do follow the process things go well. While their string of horror scoring slumps have produced just 23 points in 45 minutes, across the rest of the season they’re scoring at 93.5 points per 40 minutes.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">? in the ? Rayjon Tucker is giving Tassie buckets ?<br><br>Watch live &amp; free ? 10Peach/10play/Kayo Freebies | Every game live on ESPN via Kayo &amp; Foxtel. <a href="https://t.co/WccL40XrBe">pic.twitter.com/WccL40XrBe</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1581490650033246209?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 16, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Rayjon Tucker was the beneficiary of some quality ball movement against Cairns, leading to quality penetration from the top of the key the Snakes had no answer for.

“When he got downhill tonight, he was just dropping little floaters in there and seeing people (open) on the perimeter if he didn‘t have it,” Vickerman said.

“We wanted to find better spacing for him (Tucker) this game and we did … we did things a little bit better for him.”

The same goes for Isaac Humphries, who seems to go missing at times. 

“I think within the course of our ball movement and him setting more screens or making dribble hand-offs, every game we’ve come out and said we’ve missed him four times,” Vickerman said.

“We’ll show those edits again about where he’s open and the times that we missed him ... it’s been a constant and we haven’t quite fixed it.”

For all their well-publicised early struggles, if United can topple the Kings on Sunday it will go a long way to fixing the anxiety of a slow start.

“We can’t wait to get in here on Sunday, go against Sydney who we owe one to,” assistant coach Justin Schueller said.

“They embarrassed us last time so we’re looking forward to playing in front of that sold-out house and having them help us get over the line.”