The play-ins are complete and the FIBA window is done and dusted, which means it's time for the NBL Playoffs. And, as of now, there's no telling who's going to win this thing.
The name of the game has been parity all season long, and that sentiment isn't likely to change as both semifinals series begin. Sure, the Illawarra Hawks have been atop the ladder all season long, but there's a legitimate argument for all four teams to win the 2025 NBL Championship.
The No. 1-seeded Hawks face a South East Melbourne Phoenix team that's been rolling since its early-season coaching change, while it'll be an elite defence vs a high-potency offence as Melbourne United gets set to face the Perth Wildcats. The semifinals series are best-of-three, with the two winners advancing to a best-of-five Championship Series.
How will that FIBA break affect things? How do you go about the task of stopping the league's MVP? Here are some of the big questions going into each series.
Illawarra Hawks (1) vs South East Melbourne Phoenix (4)
Schedule (AEDT)
Game 1: Friday, February 28 @ 7:30pm - Win Entertainment Centre
Game 2: Sunday, March 2 @ 2:30pm - John Cain Arena
Game 3 (if required): Wednesday, March 5 @ 7:30pm - Win Entertainment Centre
Regular season results
Illawarra def SEM 88-82 (Oct. 26), SEM def Illawarra 103-100 (Nov. 30), SEM def Illawarra 110-105 (Dec. 31)
Will the Hawks' offensive firepower reign supreme?
These Hawks aren't just the team with the best record in the NBL, they score the ball at a rate the league has never seen before.
Justin Tatum's team finished the regular season with a 125.2 offensive rating, which is the highest in NBL history. They're just an incredibly efficient offensive team that can hurt you in a multitude of ways, from their All-NBL First Team backcourt duo of Tyler Harvey and Trey Kell III, Sam Froling's imposition in and around the paint, and the scoring punch they get off the bench from Darius Days, Will Hickey, and Lachlan Olbrich.
The Hawks can play a more traditional lineup with Froling as the true five, flanked by an elite connector in Mason Peatling; both of whom do an extremely effective job maximising the team's import guards.
The Phoenix have the ability to offer resistance on the perimeter, though. Owen Foxwell has guarded the point-of-attack well over the course of the season, and will pester the Hawks' ball carriers up the floor. Malique Lewis and Matt Kenyon have also seen minutes guarding opposing perimeter threats, and Phoenix head coach Josh King may have a preference of their size defending up top.
The personnel is one thing, but it takes a team effort to attempt to contain these Hawks. It's staying connected to their talented import guards, the big being at the level to take away easy scores, while being aware of the shooters - Hyunjung Lee and Todd Blanchfield, primarily - in the wings and corners. Then, how do you control the pace of the game when Hickey hits the floor to run with the second unit?
Do the Phoenix apply a similar game plan they did to Adelaide's Kendric Davis, by forcing the (theoretically) lower percentage shots in the midrange and floater area? Against Kell III and Harvey, are those shots even the lower percentage ones?
Can the Phoenix keep their flow while re-incorporating Derrick Walton Jr?
It's been an open secret that Walton Jr. - the Phoenix's star import point guard - will be available for the start of this series, after being out since mid-January with a hamstring injury.
Walton Jr.'s return is undoubtedly a good thing; he's a one-time NBL Grand Final MVP, and one of the league's best playmakers. Still, there's an element of recognising that the Phoenix have been playing really effective two-way basketball without him, and adding a high usage guard to that mix has some potential to mess with that flow.
It feels like the Phoenix won't mess with their starting unit, which has included Foxwell and Nathan Sobey in the backcourt, and there's a heap of value in Walton Jr. as a creator off the bench. That could obviously eat into the minutes of Ben Ayre, who has been a really important scoring piece for the Phoenix over the back stretch of the season, though there's a world where the Australian guard and Walton Jr. can play alongside each other.
It'll be fascinating to see how King approaches it; and, of course, how much Walton Jr. can give in a first game back from injury.
The Tatum vs King chess match
Both head coaches have shown to not be afraid to make bold decisions, from playing funky lineups to benching their stars. This series has all the makings of one full of adjustments.
The Sam Froling vs Jordan Hunter matchup will be one to watch. Both coaches have undersized fives they can go to within smaller lineups, so it'll be fun to see who flinches first. King loves to go to lineups with Matt Hurt at the five - especially when Hunter is in foul trouble, where it becomes necessary - so will the Hawks aim to exploit that by force-feeding Froling, or match it with Days playing at the centre spot?
Hurt is one of the toughest, most unique players in the league to guard, so he'll be a focus for the Hawks whatever position he's playing, but both teams will be looking to hunt mismatches when he's on the court.
Then, there's the running game. The Phoenix love to push the pace and get quick scores, but do you want to get into a track meet with these Hawks?
Can the Hawks turn it on after such a long break?
Last playoffs, it was the Hawks who used a play-in game as momentum to pounce on a rested United team coming off a period of time without hitting the floor. They weren't ultimately victorious in that series, but the momentum was a real thing to start that series.
While every team is without games over this FIBA window, the Hawks have had the No. 1 seed locked up for a while; that means they haven't really played a meaningful game for around a month. Will that affect them?
Will Tatum let that happen? Would the leaders in that group allow a drop-off in intensity and focus?
The team is doing everything in their power to combat any potential dip. Yes, this break has allowed Kell III and Days to fully recover from their respective injuries - though the word is both could have played at the end of the regular season if it was needed - but the intensity has remained sky high. After a short break, the Hawks were guided through a vigorous conditioning session by their strength coach - former Cleveland Cavaliers trainer, Alex Moore - which had multiple players throwing up. On the court, head coach Tatum's philosophy has been to make sure that competition is the focus for the majority of drills the team is taking part in.
We'll see how effective any of those things are - it's impossible to accurately replicate real game reps - but the Hawks are making sure to leave no stone unturned.
Melbourne United (2) vs Perth Wildcats (3)
Schedule (AEDT)
Game 1: Thursday, February 27 @ 7:30pm - John Cain Arena
Game 2: Saturday, March 1 @ 8pm - RAC Arena
Game 3 (if required): Tuesday, March 4 @ 7:30pm - John Cain Arena
Regular season results
United def Wildcats 97-68, United def Wildcats 106-97, United def Wildcats 99-93
How will United guard Bryce?
United have been conducting 'Bryce days' over this FIBA window.
No team has had more success containing Bryce Cotton - who just won his fifth MVP award - than United, who held him to 9.5 points on 25.9% FG in the two games he's played against them. A significant reason for that is because United has the two-time reigning Best Defensive Player in Shea Ili, who excels at making life extremely difficult for Cotton with his on and off ball pressure and physicality.
If it's not Ili, United has another elite perimeter defender in Matthew Dellavedova that they can place on Cotton, who averaged 28.6 points per game, highlighted by a 59-point showing in December. Even Flynn Cameron may see some time on Cotton; an example of the slew of defensive-minded bodies United has at their disposal.
Despite that success and personnel, United head coach Dean Vickerman is hyper-aware of the threat Cotton poses at all times, and has devoted entire days to focusing on the scout to contain the NBL's current - and eight-time - scoring champion.
"I think we've been pretty good in having days; like, hey, this is a 'Bryce day'," Vickerman told ESPN.
"And, as a group, as a coaching staff, these are all the edits we wanna show on him and how we believe, as a team defence, we need to get this done. Then, it's Shea, Delly, are you guys happy with this coverage? We might get minor tweaks from them, saying we'd rather do this or this, or a little bit less of that... it has been a really good, collaborative approach. Obviously, the next phase of that has been [Keanu] Pinder, [Dylan] Windler, [Kristian] Doolittle, [Ben] Henny [Henshall], and all these guys where, if you help enough to Bryce, how you then cover these next guys as well."
Like most teams, United would go through scouts and walkthroughs with a player wearing a unique bib, to signify that guy is Cotton. As has been the case in the past, development player Joel Foxwell wore the bib, where he was effectively given carte blanche within the offence. He was often flanked by Next Stars guard Dash Daniels, who was given the Tai Webster role.
"Foxy's actually been great at it," Vickerman said.
"He really has. He's playing at a high level right now. Even his passing out of a collapsed coverage on him, and how he's been able to distribute the basketball, has really tested us. The step-back three, everything; Bryce is amazing, but Foxy's been as close as we can get to him so far."
How many signature scoring bursts will we see from the Wildcats?
As much as the Hawks are scoring at the highest rate of all time in the NBL, these Wildcats are actually second in offensive rating in league history.
But, it's not just the 122.6 points per 100 possessions that's impressive, but it's some of the scoring bursts we've seen over the season that have effectively put games to bed.
Just look back at the Wildcats' play-in win over the Phoenix. John Rillie's team had a 99-93 lead with 8:20 to play. A Ben Henshall three sparked an incredible flurry and, all of a sudden, that lead ballooned to 118-95 lead, forcing a Phoenix timeout at the 5:07 mark in the fourth quarter. That's a 19-2 run in just over three minutes, which included five made threes from the Wildcats.
As much as the Wildcats' defence has been inconsistent over the season, they have the ability to junk things up with their positional size and mobility, forcing turnovers and pushing the break as well as any team we've seen in the past decade. Doolittle and Keanu Pinder can run the lanes and finish at the rim, while transition threes for Cotton and Henshall have proven to be deadly and game-breaking.
"It's not just Bryce; they're one of the best in transition right now," Vickerman said.
"I feel like we've really been solid in that area: taking care of the basketball, rebounding, all the things are good in that. Once we get back, and how we cover each other, and where we wanna support from, I think we'll be really good in that area. They're explosive, but we've done a solid job of stopping runs against them so far."
Can the Wildcats guard at a good enough level for an entire series?
Offence has been the name of the game all season long, but it'll be fascinating to see whether, as is often the case, a team's defensive proficiency takes precedence over this postseason. The game usually slows down, and more physicality is allowed (though, with NBL officials, the latter is often just hopeful rather than the rule), so being able to defend consistently - and rebound at a high rate - in the halfcourt over 40 minutes becomes a premium.
The Wildcats have shown glimpses of being an organised defensive unit - and use their positional size and athleticism to be disruptive - but not on a consistent basis. Even against a United offence that has been up-and-down, there's a real question of whether there's enough resistance on the perimeter to contain downhill point guards like Ili and Dellavedova.
There's some hope, though. What Windler brought defensively over the back half of the season was more effective than how he started the season, and a healthy Webster helps the Wildcats substantially on that end of the floor, so Rillie's team has unquestionably taken steps in the right direction as their campaign has progressed.
"We get enamoured and talk a lot about our offence but, defensively, the way we can match up with them; Windler's versatility defensively, Doolittle always wanting to take the challenge of who's performing at the best, he wants to shut those guys down," Rillie said.
"For us to have all the pieces, it's exciting for us."
Being able to apply pressure at the point of attack will have to be the focus of the series; to not let a so-so United offence find its groove and be able to get back and set their defence after made baskets, and to also facilitate the Wildcats' elite running game.
Who else can carry the scoring load for Melbourne?
How many natural scorers or creators does this United team have?
Chris Goulding is an obvious one: the team's leading scorer at 18.4 points per game, and one of the best shot-makers the league has ever seen. Ian Clark is another and, despite his up-and-down form this season, is still averaging 12.7 points per game going into this series. Dellavedova averages 7.1 assists per game, so you trust his ability as a floor general, but there isn't much advantage creation when you look up and down this roster.
Where United excels is having high-IQ, skilled players operating expertly within their system. Now, that can get you to a certain point; but, in the playoffs where we'll likely see the game played more in the halfcourt, having players who can go and create something out of nothing is unbelievably valuable, especially against a Wildcats offence that could prove difficult to keep up with.
It's easy to see Goulding getting his, but who else do we trust to come to the party?
We'll see if United is able to lean into their pace - something they've done all season, finding easy baskets in transition - encourage a heightened level of aggression from Jack White, and have its point guards exploit the lack of quality defensive personnel the Wildcats will likely play on the perimeter.