Preview: Tasmania v Melbourne (Round 14)

When: 5.30pm (AEDT), Saturday 7 January, 2023
Where: MyState Bank Arena, Hobart
Broadcast: ESPN; Kayo; Foxtel; Sky NZ
LIVE SCORES & STATS

Who won the last time?

Tasmania 94 (Doyle 23, McVeigh 17, Macdonald 14) d Melbourne 90 (Tucker 23, Goulding 21, Rathan-Mayes 20) – Round 8 at John Cain Arena

Melbourne led this game for 37:48 as Rayjon Tucker, Chris Goulding and Xavier Rathan-Mayes proved too much for Tasmania’s defence, and new import Marcus Lee provided a big punch off the bench. But Milton Doyle and Rashard Kelly had other ideas, sparking a 17-6 run to finish the game that put Melbourne’s season on an early playoff precipice.

What happened last game?

United are 5-2 from their past seven after dispatching Brisbane with a 56-point second half, but now have five straight on the road before their season-closer at home, and can drop one at most to make the post-season. Tasmania destroyed a decimated Phoenix team last round in the Anthill to move into fourth place, and with five of their final eight at home alongside two trips to Wollongong, a win on Saturday keeps a top two berth within reach.

What’s working?

Pressure, pressure, pressure – The JackJumpers have won three of their past four, forcing a whopping 21.5 cough-ups per game and winning points off turnovers 91-49. Remarkably, the JJs have had more steals than miscues in that run, averaging 13.5 thefts with Josh Magette pinching four per game. That disruptive formula has worked against Melbourne too, Tasmania +17 on points from turnovers in two wins by a combined 14 points.

Chris Goulding – Melbourne is 5-1 in Goulding’s past six games with him averaging 20ppg on 4.3 treys at 39 per cent. United are +77 with CG on the floor and -19 with him resting in that span, the skipper with the league’s best on-off differential at +20.2 points per 40 minutes. Goulding’s threat from deep enables his teammates to play four-on-four, and they must use that to attack Tassie’s interior, where MU shot 65 per cent in the paint in Round 8.

What needs stopping?

Drive-in Tucker – Melbourne’s other main scoring avenue is Tucker, who burned the JackJumpers for 23 points at 9/11 inside the arc in that game, while also dishing four dimes  and going 5/5 from the line, with his team only shooting seven foul shots for the night. United were +12 in Rayjon’s 28:54 and -22 in the remaining 11:06, shooting 4/12 (33%) on twos with Tucker out, compared to 24/32 (75%) with their swingman in the game. Tasmania will be relieved to have Sam McDaniel and Matt Kenyon back in uniform for this match-up.

D-board dominance – Tasmania are +18 in the possession game in this season series, and while their pressure has been an important part of that, their defensive rebounding has too. Melbourne have grabbed just 12 o-boards across the two games with the JJs hoovering 81 per cent of d-boards, allowing them to own the tempo. If Melbourne want to disrupt Tassie’s methodical offence, they need to tire their legs by making them play defence for longer. Isaac Humphries has one o-board in 43 minutes of this series, he needs to stand tall.

Who’s matching up?

Will Magnay v Marcus Lee – After promising improvement leading up to Christmas, big Will has played just 29 minutes in the past two games for totals of two points on 1/5 and five rebounds. He’s going to be needed against Lee, who has been critical to Melbourne’s possession game fortunes averaging 8.0 rebounds, 3.6 o-boards and 2.2 blocks in 22 minutes the past five outings, with Melbourne +50 with him on the floor and -28 otherwise. Look for Magnay to come off the bench in a direct match-up with United’s best big.

Milton Doyle v Shea Ili – Melbourne largely controlled the teams’ last meeting, but Doyle scored 15 points in the final 17 minutes – including six in the last 140 seconds – to pinch victory. Shili didn’t play that day, and while Tucker may share this job, it’s hard to imagine the league’s best on-ball defender not dogging Tassie’s key man at key moments. The other side of the ball-screen is just as important though, with Doyle going 4/8 on pull-up twos in Round 8 as Melbourne’s drops defence allowed him to operate in space inside the arc.

Who’s saying what?

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth summed up import sensation Milton Doyle perfectly after he led his team to victory in John Cain Arena.

“Milt was fantastic. He's quite smooth and easy-going and looks like he’s not doing a lot, then he has these explosions where he’s just really tough to handle,” Roth said.

“As Magnay gets healthy with him in the pick-and-roll, and Milt’s ability to do some of those things, it just opens up the floor for a lot of guys.”

Melbourne didn’t find a defensive solution for the Doyle-Magnay ball-screens, and coach Dean Vickerman could only tip his hat to the shot-making American.

“I thought Doyle made a huge impact with the way he put his feet in the paint, made floaters, dropped off passes, he was a key to their offence down the stretch and we didn’t quite have an answer for him,” Vickerman said.

In reality, the final-term excellence of Doyle, Jack McVeigh and Co is what that Round 8 clash is remembered for, but much of the contest it was a different story.

After Tasmania had held United to 68.8ppg in their previous five meetings, Vickerman’s men rolled into Melbourne Park and rolled out 53 by half-time and 75 by three-quarter-time.

The JackJumpers struggled to stop Chris Goulding on the perimeter, Rayjon Tucker on drives or Xavier Rathan-Mayes off ball-screens as the visitors flowed into their O.

“Our goals were about how we initiate the offence better, how we got to movement, how we got to a second side,” coach Vickerman said.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">CG locked in early ?<br><br>?: ESPN via Kayo Sports or Foxtel <a href="https://t.co/ZxK5nbtrlD">pic.twitter.com/ZxK5nbtrlD</a></p>&mdash; Melbourne United (@MelbUnited) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnited/status/1596432224089317376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 26, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“We were able to sustain that for periods of time in the first half and (then) in key moments in the fourth quarter we have five turnovers and they're all big ones.”

With Shea Ili back in the line-up now, it’s a pace the JackJumpers will struggled to beat Melbourne at, and coach Roth will be preaching the discipline his team showed late in the game for the full 40 minutes.

“They had 53 at half, which makes me want to throw up,” Roth said.

“We had a lot of breakdown of our coverages in areas where we just let them off the hook, then they had some great shot-making, when Chris sees the ball going in it’s a problem and it opens up other things.

“The second half was just about us getting back to getting the ball levelled off and slowing down just a tad offensively and grinding away a little more, and these guys were relentless.”

Tasmania is 6-3 since it walked into John Cain Arena that day, setting up a run at the top two with the Breakers and Taipans just two games ahead.

On the flipside, if they lose on Saturday and Perth prevail in Sydney, the JJs will fall to seventh place.

For Roth, the recipe for success is simple, starting at the offensive end.

“When the ball moves for us and we’re not overly-stagnant good things happen for us,” he said.

“When we’re a little anxious and try to win the game by ourselves and try to make winning plays early in the shot clock usually isn’t a good formula for us.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Team Werk! <br><br>McVeigh ?? Magnay putting on a show <br><br>Live now on ESPN via Kayo and Foxtel <a href="https://t.co/4GTWFteKqk">pic.twitter.com/4GTWFteKqk</a></p>&mdash; Tasmania JackJumpers ? (@JackJumpers) <a href="https://twitter.com/JackJumpers/status/1608747602467778560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

At the defensive end it’s a familiar refrain.

“Being relentless up the floor and just trying to be back in the mode of what we’ve been doing,” he said.

“I don’t judge it so much by the steals, other than the pressure to put on them to make decisions early in the shot clock and try to speed teams up.”

Melbourne’s playoff recipe will be baked on the road, but coach Vickerman doesn’t see this as a bad thing.

“We've played more games than a lot of teams by a long way,” he said.

“Hopefully that’s to our benefit in that we do get rest and every game we go to on the road we're in full health and ready to go and some teams are going to be coming off some of those (multiple) games we had in December.”

Vickerman made it clear the playoffs are still a target, and given United are 7-2 with Ili and Goulding in the line-up – and one of those losses was without Marcus Lee – it’s not out of the question yet.

“We set that target when we got our full team back and we’ve really only lost the one game with our full group together,” he said.

“We play great teams – we’ve got New Zealand a couple of times, Adelaide a couple of times, Brisbane again, JackJumpers – if we’re able to beat those teams and make the playoffs, we’ll be scary.”