Basketball On The Internet.

THE NBL's paid talking heads keep saying how important the preseason Blitz series is but quickly now, who won it two years ago? (If you actually know the answer, congratulations. You're amid a select few.) What IS important is seeing teams and new faces having a run in Bendigo after weeks of slugging it out at training.   

OK. Keanu Pinder may not exactly be a "new" face but it's great to see him back at Cairns and doing what he does best.

Too many players are absent, rested or missing for whatever reason for the Blitz to be sold to us as "important". It is great to have all the clubs under one roof at Bendigo's Red Energy Arena but any store put into the results, singular or overall, is pure folly.

New Zealand won the thing last year. How'd the Breakers then finish up? A while back, Adelaide 36ers won it. That may have been ahead of the season where the club sacked the coach.

In fact the TV call on Night One was so bad that historic Blitz commentators would have been rolling with utter dismay, and fans trolling with utter disgust.

Example? Sydney's Lachlan Bofinger hits the hardwood against South East Melbourne.

Damon Lowery: I don't know much about Bofinger's work Derek.

Derek Rucker: That would make two of us.

Unbelievable.

Can someone please explain to this pair of "experts" that the viewing public is who they should be addressing. The majority of them will not know who Lachlan Boifinger is. THAT'S THEIR JOB.

It's their job to have done at least an ounce of research so they can tell us he scored the most points for the  NBL1 East champion North Bears. 

While Lowery and Rucker jostle for which of them will be the next Corey "Homicide" Williams, we have to deal with Herbicide and Pesticide instead, both unable to offer anything informative. That's such lazy, careless and entitled buffoonery of the type which made Steve Carfino infamous.

Carfino luckily had John Casey covering his shortcomings because Case is the most well-researched and prepared caller in the business.

Trust this. He would have known who Bofinger is, so before these so-called professionals tell us again how vitally important the Blitz is, maybe they could bother to find some facts out for us.

Unfortunately for Kings fans, Bofinger was not a huge contributor but considering half of Brian Goorjian's studs were absent, South East's rout was no surprise.

Tanner Krebs and Dash Daniels both looked good in their new Phoenix threads as SEM took six points - three winning quarters and the overall win - from the contest.

Perth jumped out to an early lead but Cairns recovered and also won six of the seven available points as they took down the Wildcats 85-82.

Both teams had players absent so reading too much into the result is foolish. Jonah Bolden fouling out in his Taipans debut in 5:20 of court-time - that's roughly a foul every 1 minute, 4 seconds - was quite the anomaly.

Lloyd McVeigh's 3-pointer off a feed from brother Jack put Cairns into the boxseat at 82-78 ahead with just over a minute to play, Keanu Pinder's 14 rebounds substantial.

Returning from FIBA World Cup qualifiers, Elijah Pepper and Anthony Dell'Orso led Perth, the former with 19 points, the latter pairing a team-high nine boards with 13 points at 67 per cent.

BLITZ #1

Cairns Taipans 85 (Smith 18, J.McVeigh 17, Bruce 14; Pinder 14 rebs; Bruce 6 assts) d Perth Wildcats 82 (Pepper 19, Dell'Orso 13, Lual-Acuil 11, Doolittle, Kopa 10; Dell'Orso 9 rebs; Pepper 6 assts) at Bendigo Stadium. Qtr-By-Qtr: 15-25, 30-21, 17-16, 23-20. Cairns 6 pts, Perth 1. 

South East Melbourne Phoenix 101 (Aliir 14, Mays 13, Glover 12, Daniels 11, Sobey 10; Aliir, Schwartz 8 rebs; Sobey 7 assts) d Sydney Kings 84 (Cooks, Stone 15, Spurgin 12, Carr, Maluach, Robertson 11; Spurgin, Cooks 7 rebs; Johnston 9 assts) at Bendigo Stadium. Qtr-By-Qtr: 25-28, 35-18, 19-17, 22-21. South East 6 pts, Sydney 1.