• What do you get when A Stern Warning collides with Pete Marasmitch? You get this... I was lucky enough to enjoy a sitdown by the fireside with Jeff at the 'Smitch and discuss Andrea Bargnani and how he relates to Wall Street.
• And One gives some love to my main man, Mobs and his story on how High School Musical may save basketball in Australia. Something has to.
• Ballerblogger takes a look back in video time, to Kobe's 62 points in three quarters versus the Mavs in 2005, before he became a team player.
• Downunder, the South Dragons are threatening not to play against the Sydney Spirit in tomorrow night's game, which I think is totally the wrong approach to take. The more support to help the league get through this situation, the better. Clearly Cowan has an ulterior motive here, but still, it's time for everyone to band together. If you are a basketball fan of any persuasion in Sydney this week, you should be getting your hot pants down to the Spirit v Dragons game. A sellout might open some eyes that basketball can exist in Sydney.
• Give Me The Rock has your turkey day look around the NBA fantasy world.

The Townsville Crocodiles have put another dent in the much-fancied armour of the Melbourne Tigers, by welcoming them to The Swamp with a 113-105 overtime victory. Michael Cedar and John Rillie combined to drill 13 three-pointers off the bench for the Crocs, as they were ably supported by imports Rosell Ellis (22 points and 11 rebounds) and Corey "Homicide" Williams (17 and 8).

Cedar's shooting performance was one of near perfection, with 9/14 from the field, 7/10 from long range and 2/2 at the stripe for a total of 27 points. He even chipped in seven rebounds and two steals, as the Tigers admitted possibly not showing him the respect that he is due (NBL game recap).

Melbourne Coach Al Westover said the loss was a heartbreaker.

"When Ebe hit that shot to go into overtime I was felling pretty good," he said.

"But we didn’t go on with it and they did and I told our players you have to make plays."

"Maybe we didn’t give Cedar the respect he deserves … he was probably the difference I thought."

Meanwhile Rillie showed the form that Crocs fans know he is capable of on a nightly basis, with 6/12 from deep and 9/15 overall for 24 points, to go along with five rebounds, three assists and two steals. This was either a sign from JR that he's comfortable in his firestarter role off the bench, or more likely the knock on coach Trevor Gleeson's door that he's ready to return to the starting lineup.

Look out for more on this one on JR, On Fire, where he already has Episode 12 of the OT podcast available.

It sounds like it was a game that would have been a cracker to watch:

Townsville coach Trevor Gleeson said it was one of the best games he had seen.

"If you don’t like that game of basketball, you don’t like basketball," he said.

"That had everything, it had Ebe going of at one end, Mick at one end and big guys work hard in the paint."

"I am really proud of how they played, they played with lot of heart and team work."

"We just have to duplicate that for the rest of the season."

"When we are sharing the ball around, JR (Rillie) came of the bench on fire, Mick could drop it in from half-court at one stage."

These are the types of games that basketball fans need to focus on at the moment. Boxscore here.

The Crocs stay in the Top 6 with their second straight win (6-7), whilst the Tigers sit in third place (8-5) after many predicted them to dominate this NBL season from start to finish.

Down in Victoria, the Dragons gave the Cairns Taipans an absolute hiding, 102-64.  

It was a clinical performance from the ladder leaders, with their swarming defence holding the Taipans to a mere 29 percent (22-of-76) from the field, while shooting an impressive 57 percent (40-of-70) themselves.

The Dragons had five players that scored in double figures, with centre Matt Burston (19 points, eight rebounds) skipper Mark Worthington (14 points) and youngster Joe Ingles (12 points, seven assists) setting the tone early, before reserves Rhys Carter (13 points) and Nick Horvath (12 points) finished the demolition in the second half.

Boxscore here.

The Taipans now sit at 6-10 and need to have a long hard look at themselves it would seem, after losing five on the trot.

The sad news this morning for Sydney basketball fans and Australian hoops supporters in general, is that the Sydney Spirit might be on their way to extinction. It may even come before the season ends. This is terrible news from the perspective that they have been great battlers in the league, displaying a team record beyond their individual capabilities.

You have to feel for Jason Smith, who will be part of his second collapsing team in a year. The fans of Sydney that switched their allegiances across to the Spirit from the Kings will also be feeling befuddled. The reform in Aussie basketball is now needed more than ever.

Here's what the daily rags had to say on the news:

Sydney Morning Herald:

Sydney is likely to have no presence in the NBL following the crushing announcement that the Spirit are set to go into administration this week.

In another huge blow to the national basketball competition, the Spirit are almost certain to follow the Sydney Kings into extinction as early as this week unless an extremely unlikely saviour comes out of the woodwork.

The development will throw the NBL into turmoil, as they would have to find a way to revamp the schedule midway through the current season.

In a frustratingly similar scenario that led to the Kings folding in the off-season, when the NBL board struggled mightily to keep communication open with former Kings owner Tim Johnston, the league is now having trouble contacting Spirit owner Greg Evans.

"The league office was informed by Sydney Spirit owner Greg Evans on Saturday that the team was in a perilous financial position and has indicated that he was planning to put the team into administration," chief executive of Basketball Australia Scott Derwin said in a statement.

"We have since been seeking urgent talks with Evans to ascertain what, if anything, can be done either to help him maintain the team in the NBL for the remainder of the season, or to find a buyer for the Spirit's license who could continue the club's on-going operations.

"We have also opened up dialogue with a number of individuals who had previously shown an interest in investing in a Sydney-based NBL team with a view to getting them involved in saving the Spirit if at all possible.

"At this stage, it is simply too early to tell if there are grounds for optimism as to the team's future, but we are facing the very real prospect that they may not be able to see out the remainder of the 2008-09 season.

"We expect to be able to make a further statement on this issue, and how it will impact the other nine teams in the competition, prior to the Spirit's next scheduled home match against the South Dragons on Saturday night."

ABC news:

Players are complaining of being kept in the dark about the situation.

The League has asked Evans if there is anything it can do to keep the team in the competition until the end of the season.

Spirit Captain Jason Smith says the players are looking for answers.

"It's extremely frustrating not to get any answers out of Greg Evans," he said.

"He's uncontactable at the moment, won't answer his phone. So it's proving to be extremely frustrating from the players' and management's point of view."

The League is also in discussions with potential buyers for the Spirit's license, and says the situation highlights the need for more strict guidelines for new NBL teams.

Sportal:

The club changed its name from the West Sydney Razorbacks in the off-season in the wake of the collapse of the city's foundation club the Sydney Kings, hoping to attract fans of the defunct Kings.

But the loss of the Kings hasn't translated to an off-court boost for the Spirit, who have several times struggled to attract even four-figure crowds to their home matches so far in the 2008-09 season.

Now Basketball Australia chief executive Scott Derwin has admitted in a statement released on Tuesday evening that the 10-team competition could be reduced to nine before the current campaign is over following the information from owner Greg Evans.

The news also comes after good grassroots work done by the Spirit, such as sponsoring the recently concluded Sydney Schools Shootout, which was won by the Kings School.

Here's hoping that this news does not disrupt the currently running season and that something can be organised to keep the Spirit running through until the finalisation of 2008-09.

NBA

• Pete Marasmitch has plenty of great content and analysis lately, particularly focussed on input from Spanish coach Raul Jimenez. Check out this video breakdown of how the Boston Celtics close out the end of a quarter, freeing up KG for a shot. As a Blazers fan, I also really enjoyed this recent video analysis of Rudy Fernandez's game and this discussion of how he compares to Juan Carlos Navarro.
• Bust a Bucket has the word on tonight's rematch between the Blazers and Kings. Also check out the quick preview from Blazersedge. However, the reason to check out Bust a Bucket even more than the above, is to check out this remake of a classic Blazers poster.
• The Fundamentals from BallerBlogger are always quality reading.
• Carolyn at And One is giving love to the Aussie handle magazine's LeBron cover. If you want to know what handle is all about you can check out their site here.
• Intentional Foul has a splendiferous post about the Mo's of the NBA... and no, we aren't talking any Mo Williams or Mo Cheeks action here.
• You want all of the NBA news all in one spot? Check out TalkHoops.net and their daily 8 Second Violation.
• This photoshop from a BDL reader will freak out/anger/upset Carolyn and every other Cavs fan.
• Plenty more NBA news at LayUpDrill.com.

NBL

• John Rillie has his usual array of NBL news and links and two great videos: the backroom almost-brawl between Casey Frank and Bakari Hendrix and the only streaker incident in NBL history that I know of. Would love to find out if there have been others. Noone knew how to react!
• Basketball and Everything In Between brings us a great interview with Perth development player, Chris Goulding. Also check out his call to arms to the bloggers of the NBL to promote the sport. He has also started podcasting; give episode one a listen if you haven't.
• Asaspace looks back at Round 10 of the NBL season.
• The Basketball Professor has some news on a potential Brisbane Bullets entry to the future NBL league.

 This guy was born with springs in his feet I believe...from Team Flight Brothers:

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