Round 2 Team Of The Week

Rich Melzer throws one down against his old team, the New Zealand Breakers.

Round 2's results has left the NBL competition with only one team yet to taste defeat in this new season. That team is the Melbourne Tigers who got their 2009/10 season campaign under way with a solid win over the heavily favoured New Zealand Breakers.

The Breakers can seek revenge this Thursday as they host the Tigers.

Kevin Lisch showed he has game, as he delivered a dagger with only seconds remaining which lifted the slow starting Perth Wildcats over the Townsville Crocodiles.

Enough about the result, let's take a look at who starred this week on an individual level.

John Gilchrist: (36ers) This strongly build point guard has got his season of to a flier and Saturday night in Adelaide he got the better of the premier point guard in the NBL, CJ Bruton.

Gilchrist has displayed an all round game to date and his 17pts, 7rebs and 3 assists against the Breakers gives this comment merit.

What was good to see from the former Maryland Terrapin, is in his 33 minutes of court time, he had zero turnovers.

There is no rest for Gilchrist as this week he gets to flex his muscle against Corey "Homicide" Williams and the Crocodiles in the city of churches.

Rich Melzer: (Taipans) This week's team is going to be a little unbalanced as the best performing shooting guard was Crocodiles Michael Cedar, but my rules state you must be on a winning team to make Team of the Week.

Melzer has slipped back into the NBL well and has the Cairns Taipans sitting at 2-1 at present.

His 23 points and 7 boards went a long way in helping the Snakes secure their second home win of the season.

If the Taipans are to continue being the "surprise packet" of this season, Melzer will need to continue putting up these types of numbers.

Mark Worthington: (Tigers) The former villain soon become new hero as 'Wortho' helped the Melbourne Tigers edge past the Breakers in their season opener at The Cage.

Having missed the majority of the preseason due to a foot injury, Worthington played well within himself and managed to produce 17 points and 9 rebounds.

I believe he will only get better as the season progresses and he gets a better understanding of the "shuffle' offense. Him and Sam MacKinnon are going to become a matchup nightmare for teams.

Michael Joiner: (Blaze) The life of an import has caught up with Joiner. Helping the Blaze to their season's first win with an 18 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists effort was not enough to save the former Florida St grad his job.

Joiner got out of the blocks very slow during the preseason but knocked down some key threes in the game against the Wollongong Hawks Friday night.

To me, he seemed a little out of shape. Did this cost him is job? I'm not sure but he has been the first import casualty of this season.

Joiner aka Oliver Miller, you can leave the shores knowing you made this site's Team of the Week.

Adam Ballinger: (36ers) The new 36ers captain got his season off to a slow start up in Cairns last week but this Aussie ranga bounced back with a 22 point effort against the Breakers.

Usually one of the more efficient players in the league Ballinger was back to his best going 11-16 from the field.

It was a little unusual to see the former Michigan St grad collect only three rebounds, but when your on a Team of the Week that features a few power forwards, I can let that slide for now.

News

- Boti Nagy gives us his weekly perspective of what happened from the weekend's games.

- Will we ever see Brian Goorjian in the NBL ever again?

- New Gold Coast Blaze import Erron Maxey is 100kg and well over 1.8 metres tall. What the?

- Cairns import Rich Melzer is "working hard".

- The Perth Wildcats start a five game home stand this week against the Gold Coast Blaze.

- Townsville Crocodiles Michael Cedar is making the most of the opportunities that have come his way.