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MU - Goulding out(quad) for the 1st 2 rounds
JJ - Drimic (nose) & Williamson (foot) out

Goulding out could hurt United, JJs do have home court and the wood over United. Its a tough first game for both, imo both sides should have fantastic season and JJs at home won't want to let this slip. Barlow seems to be helping Vickerman on the side lines a lot more, Roth has had Vickerman measure recently but Barlow is very switched on. I’ll go United by a wisker of two points.
I want to see refs call the like the fiba guys do, let them play tough but call the cheap stuff, hand checks etc, reward straight up D, don’t fall for floppers or three point kick out fouls.

no, Drmic and Williamson are available tonight, having had injuries for the Blitz

Tassie healthy minus MacDonald and Woodhill

Melbourne healthy minus CG43

I think DRM and Williamsons are in's but Woodhill is out with foot injury. Regardless I think as long as JJ's bigs don't get in foul trouble they should win by 4-6pts. Doyle will look to be aggressive early, while the JJ's will look to trap him knowing that he struggles a bit with doubles coming at him. DJ should get the job on him and maybe DRM at time to be a bit of a pest. Magnay and Edwards to cancel each other out, Bannan to be solid overall, hamilton and tyger to have nice debuts also

Doyle to hit the game winner, Roth to be salty

I'm picking MU for this one. Deeper in most positions

Clear moving screens from magnay. How it's not being called is a mystery

No stats working, Magnay is a gun, good start to game.

Can Tassie chill with ongoing music? Detracts from the game imo.

United been no where as good as JJs but lead by a point. Ayre been good for JJs.

Feels like David Johnson shooting so well is keeping Tassie in this one so far, but I'm guessing he'll even up with Magney who is 1-7 in the 2nd half.

Big mistake by the JJ's letting Doyle get away.

Edwards disrupting a lot of stuff at the basket.

Loving the way Edwards plays at both ends

Kryslovic playing great de

Magnays regressed.

Tyger won't make it past 1/4 of the season.

Absolute joke that they've called one moving screen and not against the guy setting them every possession!

Where is Edwards? Only played 20 mins

Edwards got them go go gadget arms

Game came down to MU dominating the boards.

Magnay with 5 huge rebounds in 35 minutes.

MOTM shot 7/21 from the floor!

The NBL is so back baby, what a way to kick off the new season

Jesse Edwards is elite

The NBL is so back baby, what a way to kick off the new season

Jesse Edwards is elite

Great game, as I've previously noted, if you got Illi coming off the bench you are in good shape. Both sides will get better and look likely to have very good seasons. Doyle and Krislovic certainly repaid United with their pay rises.i thought Deng looked old and Marshal still got improve that D even more.

I have not watched the game yet but box scores suggest Jackie won every stat but had double the fouls & less than half the free throws so that was the different

I'd focus on the fact Melbourne had 22 offensive rebounds to Tasmania 10

A very good game. Loved the way the bigs were whistled. Generally allowed a good level of physicality and not bailed out if going away from the hoop or in poor position.

Johnson and Hamilton are incredibly talented. Not quite sure about the fit together for the three imports but I suspect they'll find that

Melbourne have a lot of improvement in them on that performance

I'm of the same opinion, the refs got it right, deserve credit.

Agree about the officiating, letting the players play was refreshing. MU with a bit more desperation and team work. JJS going to need more than just their imports filling it up.
Great start to the season bring on some more.

That was a good preview of United's season I reckon

Even team performance. Solid defense, competed hard.

Ili, Doyle and Edwards were good, but JJ's had the best two players on court. Hamilton and Johnson couldn't be stopped at times.

From a United perspective, very encouraging that Edwards got the better of Magnay. This season has the best crop of bigs the NBL's ever seen, and where Edwards fits in the pecking order will go a long way to determining where United lands.

"Doyle to hit the game winner, Roth to be salty"

Weren't far off!

Quality game to start the year, and I believe it showed off some of both team's strengths and weaknesses pretty well. Also agree re: the refs, I've been watching most of the Eurobasket this year on Disney+ and to me that is closer to how the officiating felt last night than your typical NBL game, which is a very good thing IMO.

For United, the most impressive Krslovic performance in a while, even if he couldn't help but miss a few bunnies, and Edwards had the sort of impact I expect McGee to have for the Hawks. In this particular matchup United going smaller with Krslovic was the better play, but I think against teams with more size Edwards will prove his worth. And of course, Doyle with ice in his veins. For 80% of the game he was pretty poor I thought, but came alive down the stretch and brought United home.

For the JJs Hamilton and Johnson were quality, and it will be interesting to see how Campbell fits in. He's clearly a traditional floor general type PG but both Hamilton and Johnson look very comfortable with the ball in their hands, so I wouldn't be shocked if the JJs look to make a move to get bigger.

I also feel like the JJs went with Campbell to initiate things as the 4th Q ticked down, which was a change to how they had been going about it with Hamilton/Johnson earlier and I'm not sure it was for the best. They need more out of Bannan too - hit some 3s, but needs to do better inside the arc IMO, too many fadeaways, needs to go up stronger with it especially considering Magnay doesn't offer a lot outside of catching lobs on that end.

Overall though I walked away from last night higher on Tassie than I was before, while United were about what I expected - Delaney/Krslovic doing more than I expected.

It's ridiculous how clutch Milton Doyle is. Buzzer beaters at the end of the first and second quarters and then took over at the end of the 4th to give Melb the win.

I'm not sure I've ever seen a more clutch player than Doyle in the NBL, it's like watching prime Jordan at times, a player just operating on a completely different level. Cotton's had some big clutch moments but Doyle does it so many times even multiple times like last night. Rob Rose was pretty clutch but not on Doyle's level.

He might have some competition from Hamilton for that title. The way he shot that last three to keep them in it was impressive

Zodiac he just played with them. Helped he knew the weakness of his opponents, 1st quarter went hunting Magnay, got him on the switch then got him back pedaling, bang.
Some of the team play getting him open on stagger screens was just clinical at times. MU collectively missed a few bunnies as well from how open they got at different times.

Zodiac he just played with them. Helped he knew the weakness of his opponents, 1st quarter went hunting Magnay, got him on the switch then got him back pedaling, bang.
Some of the team play getting him open on stagger screens was just clinical at times. MU collectively missed a few bunnies as well from how open they got at different times.

It's indeed incredible how clutch Doyle was last night

At the same time, he shot 7/21.

And last season shot an identical % in NBL and in PR - only 36.6%

Until then he'd spent his career at around 40%FG, with the outlier being season 1 in Tassie at 44%

You'd take the trade-off I guess, the overall inefficiency, if he can regularly hit the big shots that really matter. He's definitely been a winner for the JJ's. And he's a better defender and bigger than Ian Clark, so clear upgrade overall for mine.

It's indeed incredible how clutch Doyle was last night

At the same time, he shot 7/21.

And last season shot an identical % in NBL and in PR - only 36.6%

Until then he'd spent his career at around 40%FG, with the outlier being season 1 in Tassie at 44%

You'd take the trade-off I guess, the overall inefficiency, if he can regularly hit the big shots that really matter. He's definitely been a winner for the JJ's. And he's a better defender and bigger than Ian Clark, so clear upgrade overall for mine.

Clear upgrade on Clark- despite the disparity in shooting percentages. Clark was a sniper who shot efficiently.

But it's an upgrade because of what Doyle brings with rebounding and defense, and versatility- superior playmaker to Clark too.

Doyle's a much better player than Clark who like you said was a sniper who protected his shooting percentages like Daniel Kickert before him.

I know Doyle shot poorly last night and always does I don't know what his deal is maybe too easy for him so lack of concentration during large passages of games? He does put up the odd poor shot. But what can't be argued is when he gets serious he can't be guarded and can take over games at will like a man playing against boys.

Clark is a very different player. I think he slotted in to a role at United (and his other destinations here) very well. Doyle needs the ball in his hands which is fine, but yeah, the efficiency is not always there. Still, big shot maker and United don't need to lean on his scoring as much as Tassie did, so they'll probably survive the low efficiency nights better than Tassie did last season.