Veteran presence key for United

Melbourne United entered the NBL24 Finals as the top seed for a reason, and they flexed their muscles early to lay the bedrock for a decisive Game 3 Playoff Series win over the Illawarra Hawks.

The victory has pushed the club into its first Championship Series since their NBL21 sweep over the Perth Wildcats, in which current Houston big Jock Landale was named the Larry Sengstock Medal winner.

Matthew Dellavedova was the linchpin for Melbourne over the course of the series. He was named Foot Locker Player of the Game in the opener, before he almost willed the side to a Game 2 win. His contributions to Wednesday’s win far exceeded his 11 points, six rebounds and five assists.

Head coach Dean Vickerman was quick to praise the veteran guard following the result.

“There was a will and a desire from us tonight and ‘Delly’ really drove that over this series and again made mention to the guys at shootaround today if you put your hard hat on, win loose balls, and we were much better in the rebound stakes tonight,” Vickerman said post-game.

“When he came back to us this time we knew his body was even better than last time we saw him. He talked to me and said ‘I’m going to be so much better than last time I played at United’, and he has lived up to that.

“He sees people in front of him and he finds a way to go ahead, get to the rim and make great decisions. His leadership through this series, his desire, he did it with actions and with words, so credit to him.”

Dellavedova hurled himself over the advertising hoardings and into the Illawarra bench while chasing down a loose ball early in the game to help set the defensive tone for Melbourne, but was quick to deflect praise to his teammates.

“I think we’ve all seen Shili make plays like that all the time, and I know when I see him do stuff like that it picks me up and makes me want to go harder,” he said.

“Hopefully it’s the same but we had a lot of guys doing that tonight. Jo (Lual-Acuil Jr) had some good o-boards, ‘A’ (Ariel Hukporti) with o-boards, ‘LT’ (Luke Travers) at the start just came out super aggressive and that’s what we want from him.

“There was a lot of players tonight.”

Melbourne contested with a near three-week break between its final game of the regular season and its Playoff opener against the Hawks, but they will now have less than a week to prepare for the opening game of the Championship Series.

Vickerman believes the contested nature of the series against Illawarra is the perfect preparation his side needs to lift the championship trophy.

“We had that little break and I thought we just got better throughout the series,” he said. “We’re ready for a Grand Final series after going through that.

“We’ve talked about these moments where we captured a little bit of a lead and could we hold it or push it out a little bit, and that’s still an area we’ve been challenged with, but that’s what Finals basketball is – people are just going to keep coming.

“Can you sustain it, can you weather it, can you continue to execute through that? We learned a lot, their coaching staff continued to make good adjustments as well, and that’s what good series’ are about.”