It’s do or die for the Sydney Kings as they prepare for game two of their semi-final showdown with the Melbourne United.

The defending champions are rolling right now, having made the Kings look downright foolish in their first semi-final match-up. United cruised to a 95-73 win, making a bold statement that if the Kings hope to make it to the next round, they’ll need to do something drastically different.

In game one Kings coach Andrew Gaze was significantly out-coached by his counterpart Dean Vickerman.

The King’s rotations were confusing at times and their offence non-existent with over half their plays resulting in running a dribble hand-off motion at the top of the court which accomplished nothing but leave the ball in the hands of the Kings perimeter players with no time left on the shot clock. Jerome Randle and Brad Newley most notably would received the ball in this position and with the team having gained no advantage on offence were forced to go one on one while being heavily defended by United at all times.

“You give a lot of credit for that to the way Melbourne United played, they pushed us out of our stuff … it was very difficult for me to recognise a lot of the stuff we were trying to do,” Gaze said after the game.

“We settled for some really poor shots, and in the playoffs where the intensity goes up a few notches, not as many fouls called, the way in which you’ve got to help each other out, and the execution, is important.”

Dean Vickerman has a unique advantage having served as Gaze’s assistant in Sydney two seasons ago and the reason he was awarded coach of the year by his peers last month was due to his exceptional ability to make changes mid-game and a preparation for the opposition that Sydney just weren’t prepared for.

Gaze comments post-game reflected this as much,

“We stuck with a similar formula to what we have during the course of the season, but I think in that particular game it required something a little different.” said Gaze.

United’s roster created a number of problems and mismatches for the Kings in game one and Vickerman rotated his guys to perfection in a way that the pressure never let up. It began with Casper Ware taking full advantage of a limping Jerome Randle who suffered a sprained hamstring at the conclusion of the regular season and spent the FIBA break rehabbing for the match-up, but it’s hard to run side-by-side with a pocket dynamo like Casper Ware (22 points) on a good day, let alone on one leg.

Randle struggled both at both ends of the floor, firstly being burned by Ware who scored nine points in the first 90 seconds of the game and on the offensive end he struggled to make plays moving to the basket, something which has been his strength for the past three seasons.

United doubled down on their back-court mismatches, with Mitch McCarron (16 points, 6 rebounds) giving the Kings all kinds of grief in the next two periods. McCarron is the greatest aussie-born rebounding guard in history bar John Rillie and Damian Martin and his size and ability to back down the back-court rotation of Randle, Kevin Lisch and Kyle Adnam did nothing but make everything easier for everyone on the floor for United.

McCarron routinely drove to the basket against the Kings smaller backcourt, or choose to back them down into the block with ease which resulted in the Kings defence having to collapse and players like David Barlow, Chris Goulding and Casper Ware had open looks all game as a result.

In the moments where Ware and McCarron weren’t carving holes in Sydney’s defence, they were wearing down Andrew Bogut by getting him outside of the paint and wearing him down by running a number of pick and roll options where the speed of Josh Boone (14 points) was able to take advantage.

Melbourne assumed correctly that Andrew Bogut would be forced to play big minutes and made sure to keep their big man duo of Boone and Alex Pledger fresh for the entire game. Boone and Pledger played 21 and 14 minutes respectively, compared to Bogut who played 30 of the games 40 minutes.

“When he raised his level on the screen I thought Josh did a great job of getting out early to the rim and really put some doubt in their mind about how they defend the on-ball,” Vickerman said.

By half-time United had created a 52-35 advantage and were able to utilised their bench to ensure the Kings were unable to outscore them in any quarter. Sydney failed to get any production from the Kings bench during the first three quarters of the game support from Kickert, Pineau, Bowen and Wear when it mattered the most.

Father time seems to be effecting Daniel Kickert as the impact of playing an entire season, including Boomers FIBA qualifiers and NBLxNBA games which have seen him rendered almost non-existant for the teams last three games. Kickert has only made 2 from 25 shots for a total of 6 points across the last three Kings games.

While Melbourne’s offence was able to get Chris Goulding firing (17 points) and Alex Pledger was beneficent (5 points in 13 minutes), the Kings second unit rotation of Brian Bowen, Dane Pineau, Tom Wilson and Kickert combined for 4 points in 60 minutes of game time.

I must note that Kings rookie Deng Deng had 9 points in five minutes for the Kings, albeit this was in the fourth quarter with the Kings down by twenty so junk time had clearly established itself by then.

While it’s been an incredible ride to see the Kings acquire Andrew Bogut, increase their attendance in Sydney and finish with a winning record for the first time in a decade, it seems certain to finish today at the hands of the Melbourne United.