Basketball On The Internet.

HALLELUJAH brothers and sisters. What we learnt in Round 4 is the G.O.A.T. of NBL coaching, Brian Goorjian, still has it. Last season at the Kings was forgettable and losing to Melbourne had the doubters out in force. But that masterplan for the 36ers in Adelaide was solid gold and made Bryce Cotton look more like Bryce Courtenay.

It was hardly a novel approach by Goorj - focus in on Bryce and extract the power of one - but it was executed to perfection, 36ers fans again left to lament their evangelical coach Mike Wells had no Plan B.

Matthew Dellavedova, who's shot might be hiding somewhere in Sacramento, was back playing legit D, and we finally also got a decent dose of Bul Kuol without the bull-crap. That might be the best game he's played since joining the Kings because he was locked in.

They all were.

Goorj insisted everyone needed to look out for Kendric Davis, who was about to cop the ire of his disgruntled former fans, and they did just that. Xavier Cooks played with intent, Tim Soares did his work and Kouat Noi off the bench played probably the finest game of his NBL career. 

What we learnt about Adelaide only confirmed what we already suspected. No Plan B, no D and no contingency, just make some subs and see how that works out. The 36ers will certainly be in the playoffs and Bryce will most likely get them at least to the semis. That's where tactics, strategies and contingency plans come in. We've seen zero evidence of any of that yet.

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And now, the not so good work by the Kings, notably earlier against Melbourne.

"I was standing my ground," was Matthew Dellavedova's explanation for decking Melbourne's Tyson Walker during the last quarter of Sydney's Ignite Cup home loss on Wednesday.

"No, you took him out," referee Vaughan Mayberry clarified, seeing the play exactly the same way anyone not a Kings diehard or Delly devotee must have.

Walker's comment to Dellavedova: "You know what you did," summed it up nicely.

Many of us are or have been fans of Dellavedova. A guy with a cringe-inducing 3-point shooting action who not only made it to college basketball, but played so well and consistently that his uniform was retired by St Mary's College. 

Few expected him to make it into the NBA but not only did he do it, but he earned the respect and praise of LeBron James at Cleveland as Delly became an even-less-likely champion.

The season before, when the Cavs lost to Andrew Bogut's Golden State Warriors in the Final, Australians recoiled in horror to see our loose-ball-diving, play-hard-all-the-time Maryborough Matt being labelled and panned across the US as "Dirty Delly".

We remembered him from the 2012 London Olympics, lobbing balls for Aron Baynes to slam dunk, or being hospitalised and on a drip after leaving it all out on the court in the Finals against Steph Curry.

Fast forward to earlier this year, we admired and lauded his sportsmanship and honesty when he handed the Larry Sengstock Medal for the MVP of the Championship Series to the man who should have won it, Illawarra Hawks guard William "Davo" Hickey.

While at 35 he has spoken often of his desire to be in the Boomers' next World Cup team and at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 - delusional confidence has brought him this far, why stop now? - he definitely took us on an ugly ride back to those "Dirty Delly" chants when he (twice) physically vented his frustrations on Walker.

What we learnt there is either even the mighty fall when they're struggling to keep up OR we witnessed a momentary lapse in reason and concentration. Time will show us which one it was but sadly, I confess I'm no longer confident.

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So Round 4 is in the books. What else did we learn?

Breakers: All it took was a soul-searching team meeting, and a long look in the mirror for New Zealand to rally and again resemble the squad which blitzed the Blitz. Suddenly Parker Jackson-Cartwright can set an assists record and his teammates don't look as if they're scrap-heap bound. Even in the loss to South East, this was a much sharper team, although Izaiah Brockington was again struggling to find the form he showed days earlier against the Hawks. Petteri Koponen still hasn't realised he will barely extract one good game a night from his three Kiwi returnees and that his exuberant youths are the answer.

Bullets: Javon Freeman-Liberty leaves and pressure mounts on supposed coach Stu Lash who, admittedly remains down Mitch Norton and Sam McDaniel, but is only drawing any consistent production from Casey Prather. What we learnt is Tyrell Harrison is a shadow of himself against a mentor (Will Magnay) or a thoroughbred (Javale McGee), Alex Ducas cannot find the basket and Jaylen Adams has his head in the clouds in a world of his own. At 1-4, Lash does not have the experience or nouse to turn this around. The malaise stays in Brisbane.

Hawks: Justin Tatum was starting to resemble the "angry American coach" the NBL wants to paint him, as those post-loss comments regarding how poorly Javale McGee is being treated were self-serving and inaccurate. Maybe address McGee's frustrations and not have him fling Rob Loe to the court in NZ? Much better to see the upshot of cutting Jaquori McLaughable and watching Tyler Harvey accept responsibility to guide the Hawks into a winning vein over Brisbane. What we learnt is what we tipped last time - that Mason Peatling will respond to greater court-time and Biwali Bayles can handle back-up duties at PG.

JackJumpers: At the risk of earning the diabolically feared "Wrath of Roth", Scott Roth finally showed he is human after all with a not-so-brilliant sideline effort in the loss at Adelaide. Yes Ben Ayre enjoyed a purple patch in the third quarter but the unsung hero of the Bullets road win, TJ Starks, played 19 minutes in Brisbane, virtually straight off the plane. So in Adelaide ... he plays 14? Yet Ayre is clearly tiring? Go figure. I couldn't. If Anthony Drmic is on "managed minutes" it's time to end that BS too, especially while you're still down David Johnson and Majok Deng. And if he's not on managed minutes, then that's another blunder.

Kings: You wear some lumps with Kendric Davis - 9-of-27 one week, 11-of-17 the next, then 5-of-18 the next before a 9-of-16. Just don't doubt he can win a game for you. Bul Kuol, sigh, was back to his pantomime act of fouling and whining against United. Yet against Adelaide he stuck to his assignment, never lost focus and played the way Sydney thought he would when they paid far too much money for him. Work it out Bul. Kouat Noi provided the boost but what we really learnt was when Coach Goorjian focuses in and his players buy in, then Kings fans can think playoffs. 

Phoenix: South East can win on the road when it has Nathan Sobey sharing the ball, Jordan Hunter prowling the middle, Owen Foxwell on point, John Brown inspiring and Malique Lewis focused. Josh King has solid young backups but Hunter Maldonado remains a very weak link. His 1-of-7 in NZ took his season (in)accuracy to 9-of-38 or 23 per cent. Fingers crossed incoming import wing, 196cm Wes Iwundu can give South East that additional scorer because Maldonado has shot enough bricks for a small cottage. It might be time to show him the sights of Melbourne while someone packs his bags.

Taipans: Said it last week Andrew Andrews is taking bad shots and he was at it again in the loss to Perth, his wayward threeball for overtime a shot Jack McVeigh should have been taking. What we learnt there is AA doesn't have a clue about NBL history or about his teammate McTrey in the crunch. Kyrin Galloway and Kody Stattmann are listed at the same height and it's fairly obvious the latter will give it 100 per cent at every chance. Galloway simply doesn't work hard enough. Against United, Adam Forde's crew was undisciplined, jacking up junk and rarely working together. Reyne Smith is no Taran Armstrong and needs reining in, someone other than Marcus Lee should set a screen now and then for McVeigh, and Admiral Schofield needs to sail into the paint. He won't suffer scurvy. 

United: Will take some beating and playing fun, attractive and intelligent basketball. They took care of business in Sydney without Shea Ili and Chris Goulding, then seemlessly slotted the latter back in as they humbled and reduced Cairns to a morass of mediocrity. Rarely have we witnessed a team so in sync so early in a season. Their imports are class and there is no shortage of young men anxious to prove themselves, from Dash Daniels to Malith Machar to Tom Koppens ad infinitum. Dean Vickerman's biggest challenge might be keeping complacency from creeping in.

Wildcats: Seriously John Rillie. When are you going to shelve this failed Dontae Russo-Nance starter experiment? You tried it against NZ and afforded him 19:57 for a 2-of-9 return and 0-of-6 threes. It was late plays by Jaron Rillie rescuing Perth that night. Against Illawarra you started DRN in both halves, played him 7:50 for a 0-of-4 return, all 3-point jacks. Against Cairns he started both halves, you showed him 8:02 of love for a 0-of-1 return and yes, that was another 3-point brick. Suck it up John and recognise your own flesh-and-blood is your PG answer and we're ALL saying it. PS ... It might also be time to pay more attention to Kristian Doolittle and maybe find a focus for Ben Henshall.

36ers: The win over Tasmania was full of merit but definitely "wind assisted". Come on now refs, 27 free throws in the first half, then check the scoresheet and oops, only six for the second? The Jackies never found a way to curtail Bryce Cotton but once Sydney came to town and did just that, "coach" Mike Wells was lost for how to salvage the situation. So he did what he usually does. made some baffling subs, stared and glared a bit, but left Nick Rakocevic languishing on the bench. I swear he subs by the clock, Flynn Cameron ALWAYS the first man out - at 6:03 v Sydney, 6:27 v Tas, 5:26 v Cairns and 6:26 v Brizzy. Guess Wells figures he'll complain the least. For the curious, he had one foul in that time across all four games.

Officials: Hats off for not falling for Kendric Davis' final minutes of flop fandango in the Ignite Cup match but 27 free throws to Adelaide in the first half against Tassie? You have to be joking. Or how about this? Bryce Cotton has 15 FT attempts against the JackJumpers, yet the Kings crowd him with relentless pressure 48 hours later and he has three! Let's just concede both of those numbers are on the outrageous side for different reasons, and that our refs just need to be so much better. How they can not identify a flop or not reward a defender taking a charge unless he does flop, remains a great mystery and a blight.

TV: Jason Cadee has a lot to offer as a television analyst. Short, sharp and to the point - all qualities he had as a PG too by the way - he kept the Kings-United game interesting and provided great insight. The NBL may have gotten lucky as that crew, with Brad Rosen and Matt Russell, was a cut above the usual. Great to have John Casey calling the 36ers-JJs game and yes Case, I caught your sly "Here's Humphries" remark on Isaac's rampaging second half dunk. Now can someone explain to Derek Rucker that winning a point for each quarter only applies to the Ignite Cup (and Blitz) but wasn't in play in the 36ers-JackJumpers match? Obviously still fatigued from avoiding that walk he promised from Brisbane to Perth. Oh wait, we're not to mention that anymore? OK. But when I release the long-awaited NBL Top 15 TV Callers, he may have slipped from the coveted 1-5 group. Meanwhile in Auckland, Cam Gliddon is growing in his sideline reporter role, with well-thought questions in his interview with Breakers greats Kirk Penney and Alex Pledger. Well done to Sydney's Kendric Davis too in his post-game interview with Kelsey Browne where he revelled in the fact his coach, teammates and friends "had his back", a fact he mentioned eight times in just over a minute. That's just a few less times than Lanard Copeland mentions Andrew Gaze took all the shots during their career together and didn't play any D.

GENERAL: Wonder why every time the 36ers claim they have a "sold out" venue the attendance figure is always different? Against Sydney it was a "record" 10,021 and against Tasmania the "sell-out" crowd was 9,320. Or a sold out 9,429 the previous home game. How can the place be constantly sold out but numbers always be different? Because a seat being sold doesn't mean someone is in it. Maybe they stayed home to watch The Block. Or maybe some can buy a suite of 15 seats but only use five for the basketball. So technically the seats are sold but there is not necessarily a human in them. That's why a "sold out" crowd and an attendance number are two different things.  

KENDRIC Davis copped it from the fans in Adelaide? Mark Bradtke, Julius Hodge, Shane Heal, Brian Goorjian and Chris Goulding say "hold my beer."