Can Tassie stop United juggernaut?

Melbourne United and the Tasmania JackJumpers are locked into the NBL24 Championship Series, and Derek Rucker believes United’s ability to live by a mantra of not banking up losses will make them a difficult prospect for Tasmania to defeat.

Melbourne has not lost two straight games for the entirety of the season – including their Playoff Series win over Illawarra. The top-seeded team may have tasted defeat nine times in the entirety of the campaign so far, but every loss has been succeeded by a win.

It was the same in their do-or-die Game 3 clash with the Hawks. The Game 2 loss was laid to rest by a six-point win in which Melbourne led the whole game.

“So many teams around the world try to make that their mantra, ‘we’re not going to lose two games in a row’ everybody says that when they go into the season, but to pull it off is tremendous,” Rucker said on the Coca-Cola Cooldown.

“If anything from this season Melbourne Untied know it’s been extremely difficult to win basketball games. They’ve dealt with a myriad of injuries, they’ve had all types of things.

“I still don’t think Dean Vickerman would be satisfied with this Game 3 performance, obviously he’s happy to move forward, but I think we’re starting to see that defensive ability and talent come to the fore. In the second half they did a really good job of just wearing Illawarra down ... they’re there now and they have an opportunity to bring a championship back to United.”

If Tasmania’s shutting down of Perth’s outside shooting threats in the decisive game of its Playoff Series against the Wildcats is anything to go by, they could be the team that could relegate United to their first back-to-back losses in a row this season – and potentially take the title.

Perth made just 3-13 three-point attempts across the entirety of Wednesday night’s clash, and didn’t hit a shot from beyond the arc in the whole second half.

“It really was ultra impressive from the JackJumpers ... the JackJumpers defied the odds yet again, it was a brilliantly put together game plan by Scott Roth and his coaching staff and fantastic execution by the players on the floor,” Liam Santamaria said.

“They’re just so solid, and that’s what got it done in Game 3 and closed out the series for them.

“[Perth] only hit three threes – their lowest amount of threes for the season – because [Tasmania] ran them off the arc, they forced them towards the rim where they’ve got shot blockers in Magnay and Marcus Lee, and they didn’t hit a three in the entire second half, Perth.

“We can talk about the offence and McVeigh and Doyle and all the points they piled on, and the fact they got into triple digits, but it was what they did on the defensive end that won them the game.”

Game 1 of the upcoming Championship Series between Melbourne and Tasmania is set for Sunday, March 17 at 4pm AEDT, and will be shown live and free on ESPN via Kayo Freebies, 10 Peach and 10 Play.