NBL Round 4

Blaze v Slingers

Slingers will be seeking revenge when they travel to the Gold Coast to begin their two game road trip against the Blaze. Not only that, but also quash any talk that their side can not travel after their 32 point annihilation at the hands of Perth a few weeks ago.

James Harvey has been a standout this season for the Blaze. He has paired with Jason Crowe to form one of the most dangerous backcourt combos in the league. Unfortunately this has not translated into many wins for the new franchise. They will go into this game searching for their first home victory and should be confident after their inaugural win over Slingers in Singapore.

Slingers will be pumped up after their first win of the season against the Crocs last week. It was an impressive victory considering they trailed by double digits early in the second half. With Mike Helms in foul trouble fellow import Rod Grizzard stepped into the fray to tally a much needed 32 points. Ben Knight is one of three players in the league to be averaging a double/double so far. He work tirelessly for
24 points, 13 boards and 2 picks. Janev showed nice touch for a bigman from beyond the arc to score 17. The best sign was they scored 60 points in the second half while their best player Helms sat on the pine and finished with 10 points for the game. The younger brigade are starting to find their niche in the team and now have the confidence now to make plays at important times.

Gold Coast were extremely unlucky in the final few minutes last start against the Tigers losing 96-90. If they buried their free throws in the final quarter they may have secured the biggest upset of the season, but it was not to be. Harvey and Crowe combined for 39 points. One criticism I have about Jason Crowe is his bad turnover to assist ratio. 8 turnovers against the Tigers was just too many. He has to control the ball with more care to ensure his club has maximum opportunities or they could find themselves in trouble in most games.

Ben Melmeth was a late withdrawal against the Tigers and the Blaze were clearly in trouble early against Anstey and co but they fought hard for the entire match. They have enough depth in their frontcourt to be competitive with anybody.

I am expecting a close tussle for long periods of this match. Singapore were hurting they didn’t bring their best game last time the two teams played. Helms and Harvey both had 27 for their respective teams but it will be the supporting casts that will more then likely decide the result. I would lean to the Coast in this department at this stage of the season. The Slingers are building in this area every week but on the road with a young team it may take sometime for them to get the results there are searching for.
Helms and Grizzard would have to combine for 50/60 points on the road for the Slingers to be chance. I would not put it past them.

NO BET

Melbourne v Dragons

The winless Dragons face ladder leaders undefeated Tigers in what is sure to be a classic local derby. Souths find themselves in a jam here, Tigers then the Kings on back to back tomorrow not to mention the Bullets next week, there is a real possibility they could 0-6!

Improvement was shown against the 36ers in Adelaide. Nathan Herbert in his rookie season stepped up to the mark and drilled 23 points including 5 triples. Ingles led the side with 25 points, 5 boards and 10 assists. They were without import Cortez Groves who sat out with an eye injury. It looks like he will be unavailable again this week.
Player/Coach Shane Heal is under pressure and wouldn’t be happy with their efforts in second halves this season. They have lacked intensity in crunch situations which has been most disappointing.

The Tigers kept rolling with another victory over the Taipans in Cairns to go to 5-0.
After injuring his ankle in the first half, Dave Barlow joined Daryl Corletto to turn the lights out for the home side in the second half scorching 30 points between them. Anstey was once again at his brilliant best recording 20 points, 10 boards, 3 assists and 4 steals.

The Tigers will like their chances down low against Horvath/Burston who have shown very little so far this season. The visitors needs to match them on the glass to be any remote chance to keep the scores close, but this is a derby and traditionally everybody lifts for these encounters, so expect the unexpected.

Without Groves Hammer will have to log significant minutes also. I was impressed with their creativity with the ball against the Sixers which was surprising without Groves. It seems to me Groves has struggled to fit into the Dragons offence as quickly as they would have anticipated. Completely different offences at South Dragons compared to his previous club at the Hawks. The Dragons react a lot off what the defence gives them and they rely on ball movement to find the open man. He is more of a dribble penetrator type player who creates for himself and others so this could be a major reason as to why the Dragons are having their struggles offensively this year.

Jacob Holmes to me is a three trying to play the four. He doesn’t have a bad jumper from the outside but seems completely lost down in the block with no low post game to speak of. The Dragons will be hoping to release him at some stage when Burston feels confident enough to play more minutes, but that might not be for awhile.

With the Tigers quality, depth and experience in almost every situation it’s going to be a tough task for the Dragons to break their duck here. They will need some inexperienced but talented individuals to have career nights to guide them to victory. They might seize this opportunity in a derby game to make a name for themselves but I would be leaning to the Tigers in a fiery match.

I think the Dragons might be happy to be within 10 points of the Tigers given the injury to Groves and the inexperienced lineup they have. They would want to finally finish a game the right way and show some strength in the closing stages and bring some momentum into the match against the Kings tomorrow afternoon.

With the Tigers tendency to coast through their matches sometimes and not give their opponents the respect required, this may leave the door ajar for the visitors. Interestingly also this is only the Tigers 2nd home game. They have had 4 games on the road so it will be interesting to see how they perform.

NO BET