Hopefully it's better value than the "training" session we went to yesterday!

Not sure having Aron Baynes in commentary is a great advertisement for the game.

Anyone else having audio dropouts?

This being a Pelicans home game is bizarre.

Not really, you can't sell an away game only a home game.

...what?

Stats don't seem to be working. Surely it’s a pelicans away game.

There's a giant Pelicans logo at mid court and they're playing "defense" chants when Melbourne has the ball.

Presumably United/the NBL bought a Pels home game from them.

It's pre-season, games are arbitrary.

United are a very good defensive team in the NBL but not sure they're the greatest match up for an NBA team. The only way to beat them is like when the 36ers blew the Suns out of the water offensively.

"It's pre-season, games are arbitrary."

Uh no. NBA pre-season games used to sell for $1 million each, that was some time ago though.

Williamson earns more a season than the whole nbl. I'm not certain what this shows me, pelicans first game, still got the cobwebs and just put the foot down when they want.

Does anyone have a rough idea how much the pelicans got paid to do this?

As long as Fears is on the court, Melbourne are a chance

Entertaining game for a practice game. United did well but bit like boomers winning the Asian cup, other than limited minutes in the first half it was like playing their second, third string side.

New Orleans 107 to Melbourne 97

Class of the pelicans marginally too good

-25 points from Doyle
-11 points 6 rebounds from Daniels

Trey Murphy the top pelicans scorer with 18, but they put in the bench the second half and 6 guys had double figures

These NBA/NBL games are always a strange beast. There's an awkwardness of comparison just looking at the specimens that make up an NBA team, and our guys comparatively kind of look like plumbers. You can tell, as well, that there is a lot of 'thinking' on our end, adjusting to playing against guys taller, longer, and more athletic. But when you put everything in perspective, and you accept that the Pelican's starting 5 didn't play a lot, and you look at the resumes and pay packets of their second and third string team, you have to say United actually did a hell of a job to make it look like a game - especially considering a fairly poor shooting night, and no Goulding or Ili for most of it.

Any time these games happen, I wonder what we can really take away from it. Clearly our league is not as good as the NBA (duh). But I think we can say there are some guys here that can definitely ball (hey Milton Doyle) and we can be proud of the level of our little, relatively underfunded homegrown product, and the potential in a kid like Dash Daniels, who is probably a jump shot away from being ready for the big show.

Very well said ME

Sitting here, this morning, reflecting on the game and decided that I would comment on how good it was. Came here (to hoops) and read what Me said. I can only add my praise. Me, thanks for describing the game. Did it much better than I would have. (Please change your name, ME. I am still trying to unwind my brain after that last sentence. See what I/Me mean?)

Back to last night. The event was flawless. Watching it was like watching a sweetly written romance where everyone lives happily ever after. Where nothing goes wrong, everything fits the bill perfectly, even lines up well with promos and hype.

New Orleans Pelicans won, as they should have. They could have whopped us but didn't. A stunning performance on every front.

These superstars were as gracious and (even) appreciative as they could have been. A huge tick for everyone.

And hats off to Melbourne United. too. Couldn't/wouldn't have happened without them.

In all honesty, could anything have been better?

Please don't say a Melb United win. That would have spoiled the reality of what we all saw.

Best of all! We have Sunday to look forward to, too. Pressure is on, SEM. Please do as well as MU just did. That would be a great finale.

Much more of this, please!

Daniels was the standout for me.
For a 17 year old to be running around out there is already amazing but the fact he didn't look out of place was even better.
Great on court attitude, dosnt give up.
As mentioned above, a bit of work on his jumper and he’s ready to to a long way.

So I have to speak on this - for some reason NBL media is coaxing NBA guys who'd have literally no insight on the NBL whatsoever to call it 'the second best league in the world'.

They cornered Zion to do it before the games, and they did it again with Kevin Garnett. Probably gave Harry Connick Jr a go while they were at it. It is beyond embarrassing that the league seems to be forcing compliments like this. When Zion did it, the journalist literally forced the words into his mouth and the only polite response Zion could make was to agree.

Now the claim may be seen as harmless PR, but it's embarrassing, patently untrue, and why hold onto the claim of being second best? It's just cheesy to fight for that.

Anyone with two brain cells knows the second best league in the world is the Euroleague and it's not close. You'd expect them to be, as well. it is no slight to anyone else to say that. But when the NBL, which might sit somewhere maybe within the top 10, tries to take the claim and run with it, and force it into the mouths of NBA personalities it just rubs me up the wrong way.

I agree it is bad spin given how far off the mark the claim is, Top 10-12 where we have been placed before by objective experts, okay.

For all the good LK has done his obsession with spin and optics is starting to leave a bad taste in the mouth. The talking head clowns like Hooley and Heverin yapping on and on about awesome NBL end of bench guys are and who could forget the Baynes situation physically attacking a coach.

LK and the NBL handled that situation so poorly trying to cover the assault up only for a non-NBL affiliated journo leaking the BTS footage, obviously passed on by a Nissan Arena employee, that saw the NBL put out that embarrassing statement decrying the leaking of the video, not the content of the video itself, and then at the end of that season moving Bullets home games to another venue as punishment. Not to mention the pissweak suspension the NBL gave Baynes too.

A very unseemly chapter in recent NBL history.

Well said, Zodiac and ME. I think it's gone way beyond passion for the game and well and truly into selling it as a business.

I've been following the league for 40 years, and it's in a very auspicious place right now with seemingly unlimited potential.
However........as you said me, the claim of being the 2nd best league in the world is blatant bullshit.

Baiting Zion into saying that was soooo cringe, even he knew it but maintained his obligatory affirmative response.

The need by the NBL to constantly project that claim is akin to a school kid bragging about his achievements to a bunch of secondary school kids in order to try and attract acceptance and praise from the "big kids"

Let it go NBL, let the game, the product speak for itself.