Game preview – 36ers v JackJumpers – 11 November

In their only game for round 6, the Tasmania JackJumpers (5-4) head to Adelaide to take on the 36ers (3-6) on Saturday night.

This will be the first matchup for these teams in NBL24, apart from Tasmanias 4 point win in the pre-season game at the NBL Blitz. Tasmania is searching for consistency, they began with strong start to the season with big wins against United on the road and a pair of wins over the Sydney Kings with the league singing their praises. But back-to-back losses in round 5 brought them back to reality, particularly on the defensive end.

The defense improved last week in a tight win over the Brisbane Bullets, but coach Scott Roth knows that need to be better overall.

“We have a long way to go in those areas we have a lot of undisciplined fouls a lot of unnecessary gambles……..until we get that under control you know we’re a long way away from where we need to be,” he said.

For Adelaide, they are working hard to get their season back on track after a rocky start to the that saw them lose 4 of their 5 opening games. The midseason acquisition of shooting guard DJ Vasiljevic more emphasis of the ball going through Isacc Humpries has seen their record improve to 2-2 with key wins against the Perth and New Zealand.

Adelaide 36ers (3-6) v Tasmania JackJumpers (5-4)
Saturday, 7.30PM AEDT
Adelaide Entertainment Centre

What to expect

Both teams have just the one game this round, so both will be well rested coming into this game. The JackJumpers will be at full strength for the first time this season, with Centre Will Magnay passing a fitness test on Friday.

Although being on a minutes restriction, this allows Scott Roth to have a rim protector on the court for longer periods with the duo Magnay and Marcus Lee at this disposal.

After a couple of poor shooting games, Tasmania improved their outside shooting last weekend agaisnt the Bullets knocking down 13/37 at 37%. They are equal first in the league for three point percentage at 36.6% and rank second for three point attempts 32,2 attempts per game.

If they can get good looks and hit from outside then that will be key to a road win in Adelaide. Jordon Crawford will be looking to turn around his shooting, The JJ’s leading scorer went 4-21 from the field last week and 0-7 from outside. At the other end of the scale is Clint Steindl, who is marking 300 NBL games this week. Steindl went 3-4 from outside last week and is averaging 63% from outside this season.

Adelaide will be looking to take the positives out of their loss to the Perth Wildcats, where they came back from 20 points down in the third quarter to take a final quarter lead.

However the JackJumpers will look at how the Wildcats exploited the Sixers defence on either side of half time, where Perth outscored the sixers 44-13. Alsoe xpect the Jackjumpers to look to get on top on the glass, Adelaide lead the league in offensive rebounds given up (14.9) including giving up 25 in thier recent loss to Perth resulting in 26 second chance points.

Key match-up

Marcus Lee v Isaac Humpries

As mentioned above, Scott Roth will be relieved to have Magnay and Lee both available for the first time this season. Magnay will be coming off the bench, but it will be up to Lee to contain Humphries.

Humphries has had a mixed NBL24, ranging from a season low of two points to a recent season high of 24. A lot of this comes down to his team mates feeding him the ball and his ability to make the most of mismatches in the post. Since DJ Vasiljevic has joined the Sixers, Humphries touches have improved and he’s averaged 17.7 points and 7.7 rebounds across his last three games.

Making life hard for Humphries will be Marcus Lee and will importantly need to do it while keep out of foul trouble. He currently ranks second in the NBL for fouls per game with 3.6, but was able to keep his fouls to three fouls last week and equalled his season high of 22 minutes on court.

Lee’s offensive output of 6.1 points per game is also slightly down on his scoring average from last season of 9.1 with the Melbourne United. But once again, a lot of this is down to his minutes this season at 19 per game, down from 23 last season.

Humphries is Adelaide’s only legitimate centre in their squad, if Lee can flip the script and get him on foul trouble, the Sixers would look to Toni Smith-MIlner or Alex Starling to fill the role. Both of which would make a Lee option in the post very enticing for the JackJumpers.

They said it

Obviously adding Vasiljevic into their roster, he’s provided a scoring punch for them. I guess yo’d say after the start they had, they’ve kick started some momentum for them. So they’re going to be a tough team to guard, I mean they’ve got a lot of guys who can score the ball and they’re spacing the floor for thier shooters, so you’ve got to defend that three point line.

You can see the resurgance of Isaac Humphires, and the way he’s been able to move this season and he’ll be another problem for us.

JackJumpers cäptain Clint Steindl on playing against the 36ers.

They play great basketball they share it, move it, they execute very well in the half court, they try to be disruptive. Obviously we’ve turned the ball over quite a bit so valuing the basketball clearly [learning] from our mistakes of last game of making sure we box out, have as many shots as the other team does and being able to value the basketball

36ers coach CJ Bruton ahead playing the JackJumpers

Roster availability

Brisbane
None

Tasmania
None

Credits – Original cover image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons/Ardash Muradian