R20 Preview: Sydney Kings vs Melbourne United

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Time is ticking on Casper Ware Sydney's post-season chances, and there is no bigger test of their finals credentials than Chris Goulding and the ladder-leading United.

When: 8pm (AEST), Saturday 29 May

Where: Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney

Broadcast: ESPN; Sky Sports NZ; SBS On Demand; Twitch

The last time
Melbourne 103 (Goulding 21, Lual-Acuil 20, Hopson 18) d Sydney 78 (Ware 25, Kickert 13, Moller 12), Round 16, John Cain Arena, Melbourne

For chunks of this game it was a quality performance from the Kings. They led by 11 at quarter-time after back-court buddies Casper Ware and Shaun Bruce combined for 16 points and 4 dimes in the opening stanza. When Jarell Martin opened scoring in the final period they trailed by just three, but low on troops they ran out of steam and Melbourne made them pay, 13 unanswered points from Jo Lual-Acuil and Yudai Baba blowing the game open, the home side winning the final term 33-13 as their bench dominated the contest.

The now
Sydney looked like a tired team in Perth on Thursday night, struggling to play through the Wildcats’ physicality on offence and then a step slow at the defensive end as the champs executed with ease in the decisive second quarter. The Kings have now scored above 81 points just twice in their past eight games, and a repeat for their 67 points at 37 per cent in the Jungle certainly won’t get it done against a rampaging Melbourne United offence.

While Sydney now likely need to win their final three games to make the playoffs, triumphs over the Kings, Taipans and Sixers would hand United the minor premiership, regardless of their clash with Perth next Friday. Dean Vickerman’s men are bouncing off a Round 19 road double where they averaged more than 100ppg, and if they are able to dominate Sydney on the o-boards as they did in their lop-sided last meeting, this could be another big win.

The stats

- Melbourne have scored 87 or more nine times in their past 11 games. Those nine high scores were wins, while their two lower totals were losses to Perth and SE Melbourne

- United have pulled in 33 per cent of available o-boards in this season series, compared to Sydney’s 28 per cent, and lead second chance points 46-23

- In the Kings’ Round 10 drubbing of Melbourne, they won points in the paint 50-36 and shot 61 per cent from two-point range. In their two defeats those numbers are 58-84 and 46 per cent

- Sydney have held United to 8.3 triples at 29 per cent in this season series, compared to 10.2 threes at 37 per cent against the rest of the NBL

The key men

Brad Newley – In Noodles’ past six games he has shot 7-of-39 from the field and 1-of-17 from the three-point line after shooting 37 per cent from range in his first 25 outings, and he has also pinched just one steal in that span, after thieving 20 in the opening 25. While it is the sunset of Newley’s great career, with no Louzada, Vasiljevic or Glover, Sydney need him to wind back the clock, turn up the D and attack Melbourne’s pressure with poise.

Scotty Hopson – With Hop in uniform Melbourne are 21-3 scoring a league-best 90ppg, compared to 4-4 and 81.4ppg without him. He missed his side’s loss to Sydney, but has scored 32 points in 48 minutes in their pair of wins, United +28 with him on the floor and level-pegging in the other 32 minutes. This shapes as a job for Xavier Cooks, whose 10-point, 7-rebound, 3-assist, 3-block, 3 o-board performance in Perth was exactly his trademark.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cherry on top of the W for <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@MelbUnitedHQ</a> ?<br><br>Scotty Hopson finishes the lob, and John Cain Arena loved it <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/WQz6jcej9t">pic.twitter.com/WQz6jcej9t</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1388750367953879041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The quotes

In Round 16, Melbourne opened a late can of whoop-ass on the Kings, and after a tight three quarters of basketball that was a big relief for coach Dean Vickerman.

“I was a little concerned because the last game that we lost was in Sydney and it was our poorest performance all year, we wanted to stand up today and say that’s a blip on our schedule, we don’t do that,” he said.

“I didn’t want to see a similar tone happen, so the response in the second quarter, we track getting three stops in a row, and I think four times in the second quarter we got multiple stops in a row.

“When you do that it allows the opportunity to run and I thought we converted well.”

Their defence was tested time and again that day, Casper Ware racking up 25 points on five trifectas.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Qantas really let Casper Ware on the flight to Melbourne with a flamethrower ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> live on SBS VICELAND <a href="https://t.co/ywowLwLczN">pic.twitter.com/ywowLwLczN</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1388738423335251971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

But every time Melbourne was able to run him off the arc their team systems stood tall, as did Jo Lual-Acuil in the absence of Jock Landale.

“The biggest impact that he had tonight, he shot the ball at a high percentage, but challenging shots at the rim,” Vickerman said.

“There were some times where Casper went by us but blocking a couple of those at the rim ignited our break and saw Baba get out on the break and do some of the things that he does, that last line of defence from Jo tonight was outstanding.”

The Kings entered that game on a four-game winning run looking the likely third-place getter, looked like pinching one from the ladder leaders, capitulated, and have now just won two of their past seven to leave their playoff hopes in the Hawks’ hands.

Coach Adam Forde sensed worse things to come at the time.

“It was embarrassing,” he said post-game.

“It was a game of runs – they had a run, we had a run. They had a run, we had a run – Melbourne went on a 17-0 run to finish out the game and that’s how we played, and we needed that.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">?H MY GOODNESS <a href="https://t.co/RkXU3cmn96">pic.twitter.com/RkXU3cmn96</a></p>— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ/status/1388745286256713729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“It’s slippage. There’s slippage in our training, there’s slippage in the coaching staff, there’s slippage in the extended group, there’s slippage in the playing group and that’s the result, and that’s what we needed, we needed a swift kick in the nuts.

“Melbourne did a great job, and this is where we failed especially in that first half, they went small ball and exploited the fact that we are obviously very limited in the wing department.

“On the flipside of that, we didn’t do a good enough job trying to exploit the mismatch down the other end, so it became a bit sluggish. What we found is if we just flowed into our stuff rather than trying to force the action it worked to our advantage.

“We are bigger across the board and we got outrebounded, another reason why that was embarrassing.”

For point guard Shaun Bruce, the undermanned Kings backcourt simply couldn’t handle Melbourne’s pressure for 40 minutes.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">"I'll have that" - <a href="https://twitter.com/sam_mcdaniel30?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@sam_mcdaniel30</a> <a href="https://t.co/MPwc6QCKs6">pic.twitter.com/MPwc6QCKs6</a></p>— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ/status/1388740341067444224?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 2, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“You’ve got to give them credit, they really got in the lanes and slowed us down so we couldn’t get the ball from side-to-side, that really kept it on one side of the floor which makes it tough,” Bruce said.

“We then turned the ball over a few times, some mental errors by us, but (also) Melbourne making the adjustment and being more physical and us not making them pay for that.”

After a tough loss in Perth, where once again a brief but spectacular collapse cost them a chance of victory, the Kings must make the appropriate adjustments and get a W on Saturday.

There are some lessons to learn from the Wildcats that are very relevant for Melbourne, most notably how to attack the stingy D before they lock you into grinding half-court sets.

“We started to become more of a half-court set team and that plays right into Perth’s hands, because they're so good getting into the lanes, where what works better for us is flowing into an early on-ball and then moving that ball east to west, once we shifted back to that we started getting some better looks,” Forde said.

“We have to win out, we also have to rely on Perth beating Illawarra … but we can’t worry about that, we can only worry about ourselves.

“That’s going to be the message going into the game on Saturday, we either stand up or we step aside. We've got to play ball.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AND1???<br><br>Jarell Martin with authority ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SydneyKings</a> <a href="https://t.co/YRi0UFvj1k">pic.twitter.com/YRi0UFvj1k</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1397900330566705159?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 27, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>