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Melbourne United 93
Illawarra Hawks 81
Round 1 of the 2015-16 NBL season continues with what should be a close battle as Melbourne United play their first home game of the year against the Illawarra Hawks at Hisense Arena. Join The Roar from 2:45pm (AEDT) for live coverage.
Melbourne United have been tipped by most people to take out the title this season, and with players like Hakim Warrick and Stephen Holt joining the team, it’s easy to see why.
Seriously how is anyone going to stop this team? With the two imports joining a starting five featuring Daniel Kickert, David Barlow, and Chris Goulding, this line-up will be terribly difficult to defend.
Of course assembling the talent is one thing, to make them gel is another. Let’s see how they play before we start handing out championship trophies.
With a new name, a new coach and many new faces on the roster, the Illawarra Hawks are also looking to build chemistry early in the season. Considering they were missing point guard Rhys Martin, and played the majority of the game without Kevin Lisch, the Hawks were pretty impressive in their loss against the Cairns Taipans.
They are also a team with plenty of potential on offence. The Hawks have an arsenal of gunners capable of picking you apart from downtown and AJ Ogilvy gives them a nice presence inside.
Kirk Penney shook off some early rust against the Taipans and started to look like the Penney of old. While he’s not as athletic as he once was, he showed the same sharp-shooting skills we saw while playing for the Breakers. Penney, the oldest man in the league, will be out to prove he’s still one of the best in the competition.
Who wins?
The Hawks will be better than what we saw on Thursday night. They’ll be hoping their deep bench and bevy of shooters will be enough to get past Melbourne. If Kirk Penney gets hot anything’s possible, but it’s hard to tip against United, especially at home.
Melbourne United by nine points.
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