Melbourne United Look Pretty, Pretty, Pretty, Pretty Good.

Melbourne United 89

Adelaide 36ers 65

Curb Your Expectations Adelaide basketball fans. The 36ers were playing the lead role of a heavily indifferent Larry David on opening night of the NBL’s 2021season against championship hopefuls Melbourne United, who looked pretty, pretty pretty, pretty good. Playing as a well constructed unit, United looked like they were in mid-season form by the third quarter, where the 36ers looked like they spent warm up introducing themselves to each other and awkwardly bumping elbows for the first time. As Melbourne fans will be watching alley-oop and fastbreak dunk highlights from a variety of new faces, Adelaide fans can go home knowing that their coach, Conner Henry, is a lock for best live television cuss-filled rage of the year, and at the end of the day, ins’t that better than a win? I’m feeling strong ‘NO’ vibes from the southwest.

Melbourne United spent the first 20 minutes feeling out the situation before putting things together. Pulling away in the second half they were able to convert defensive stops into easy points and hold Adelaide to two 13 point quarters to finish the game. Kicking the door down on their first win of the season, they’ll have much stiffer competition going forward as the 36ers shot 34% from the field in a stinker of a shooting performance. With only Daniel Johnson shooting above 50% while having a meaningful contribution, Adelaide will hope this was a rusty start that some WD40 can fix rather than a long learning curb of a season, Conner Henry might be looking for some heart medication if the latter comes to fruition.

Both teams looked like they have some serious talent on their hands in the coming years if the NBA doesn’t get to them first. Josh Giddey for Adelaide was talked about non-stop in the broadcast, but looked a little lost on the court. His athleticism and feel for the game in unstructured play looks legitimate though. Jock Landale seemed more like the future prospect to look out for. The Melbourne big was grabbing boards well above the rim all night, sparking the offence with dives to the hoop on alley-oops and frustrating the Adelaide bigs all night. Compared to former rookie of the year Isaac Humphries huffing like he’s just ran a half marathon three minutes into his season, he’s looking like he’s got big things in store for himself.

In a stinker of a opener for the league, Andrew Gaze was in truely unique form from the onset. He compared NBL debutant Josh Giddey to NBA All-Star Luka Doncic (RIP to Giddey’s career at one day young), he informed us that the Adelaide fans were on their feet in the second quarter as the camera panned to a very lulled crowd firmly planted upon their seats and finally, digging deep into his lexicon, he quothed, “He’d rather pass a kidney stone than the ball”. Gaze might have some questions to answer if he comes across Jo Lual-Acuil in a poorly lit hallway in the coming weeks.