United's lessons learned on handling break

Melbourne United learned some tough lessons from going so close to a championship last season and the latest one to implement is what they hope will see them come out stronger to start their Playoff series.

Going back to last season and United were in top spot most of the regular season and had home court right throughout the finals, which saw them beat the Illawarra Hawks in Game 3 of the playoffs series and then host Game 5 of the Championship Series.

However, the Tasmania JackJumpers scored the stirring win and what stood out across the eight finals games to coach Dean Vickerman, his coaching staff and experienced playing group was that the needed to execute better late in games.

The longer that NBL25 has been going on the better United have been performing in those situations so that is one box ticked off.

The next lesson was that Vickerman felt that it was the Hawks who were battle weary opening their playoff series last year better with United coming off not having played for 18 days leading into it.

It's going to be a similar scenario this time with United finishing in second spot at 19-10, following Saturday night's 103-93 Throwdown victory.

There's a potential 19 days until Melbourne plays again which will see them host that Game 1 either against the Perth Wildcats or South East Melbourne Phoenix, who finished third and fourth, and go to battle in Perth on Tuesday night.

Vickerman feels better about that scenario given the preparation time will be similar for both teams to start that series with the FIBA break in between, but he's also confident they learned some lessons from last year.

"It's a little bit different this year and we felt that in the Wollongong series last year we tried everything we could to be up to speed, but for that Game 1 it just didn’t feel like we were at speed," Vickerman said.

"Now there's no real kind of advantage playing those hard games right before the semi finals this year, everyone's going to have this little break and hopefully our performance staff feel like we can do it the best, and come out ready."

While Melbourne were more than likely locked into second spot coming into Saturday night's Throwdown, Vickerman was feeling nervous still knowing it wasn’t 100 per cent confirmed.

A 20-plus point loss to the Phoenix would open up the possibility that United slip to third and completely change everything with them. Instead of having a 19-day break to worry about, they would be getting ready for another Throwdown just a few days later.

Then when South East Melbourne were up 12 early in the third quarter, Vickerman's worst nightmares were flashing before him, but they responded strongly outscoring the Phoenix by 22 points from that point to score the 10-point win.

Given the Phoenix had a free swing while locked into fourth no matter the result but potentially avoiding a trip to Perth this week with a big win, Vickerman was on edge but ultimately proud of his team's second half.

"It was a nervous day for me because it was weird with the way it played out where South East can't move on the ladder but they can have an influence on where we are on the ladder," Vickerman said.

"For me I felt like they kind of got a free hit to just go out and shoot with confidence with nothing really mattering with what they're doing. Anytime you have a team coming in with that mindset, it's always a dangerous situation.

"But I loved how we started the game before there was that five-minute period in the back end of the second where we got a little bogged down, and they caused us some problems.

"That created some nervous moments but I liked a lot of things that we did in the second half and to win three quarters of the game meant I was pretty pleased."

While in an ideal world there would be no FIBA window to navigate midway through the finals series, Vickerman acknowledges their importance at the same time.

He is also feeling better about not being disadvantaged this time around given that either Perth or South East Melbourne Phoenix will only have played three days more recently than his Melbourne team.

"We understand what the FIBA windows are and there's a lot of things I like about them in how it prepares maybe the next group of Aussies to be ready for big tournaments down the track," Vickerman said.

"Jacob (Chance) obviously gets the opportunity to coach it and gets those type of reps to coach a national team.

"So there are a lot of positive parts to it but the negative side is that I'm sure we'd love to play a game in a week.

"But we do have some bodies not right so we can take advantage to get them right and beat up on each other in a few scrimmages, and make sure we do things at a high intensity.

"We will make sure we have some fun and enjoy it after being a grind on the road for that period. Now we get to enjoy our basketball while going at it."