Bench praised as reserves boost United towards seventh straight win

Melbourne United’s second unit has been showered with praise following their huge performance in Saturday evening’s victory over the Adelaide 36ers.

After a slow start to the contest which saw the defending champs fall behind by eight points, the bench turned the game around, wrestling the lead away from the home side to close the first quarter and helping ensure United never trailed across the following 30 minutes.

The quartet of Ariel Hukporti, Shea Ili, Brad Newley and Mason Peatling did it all for Melbourne, combining for 40 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists.

This was supplemented by some truly suffocating defence from David Barlow in his 350th game, as he completely shut down 36ers sharpshooter Daniel Johnson, limiting him to zero points while being guarded by the milestone man.

Speaking after the game, Captain Chris Goulding heaped adoration on United’s bench.

“Our bench group came in, as they so often do… and they gave us some energy, got the game back on our terms, and pushed (the lead) out, so it was impressive from them.

“We’ve built a bench group that could start on just about any team in this league.

“It’s difficult for one person to carry a team night in and night out. We’ve got a team with a lot of weapons, on any given night whoever gets that opportunity to step up can carry us.

“We want to give all our weapons a chance to shine.”

This was reiterated by Matthew Dellavedova, who despite having a slow scoring night, found his teammates time and time again for good looks.

“We’ve been building and building… There’re some areas to improve, but we’re nearly there and we’ve got a really deep team.

“We’ve got so many weapons in CG, Jo and Caleb, and tonight Newls, Ariel and Shili off the bench.

“Every night it’s going to be somebody different, and I think that’s a real strength of this team.”

Melbourne’s next matchup will be against the Brisbane Bullets, who have themselves shown the ability to go deep into their bench for strong performances out of the likes of Jason Cadee, Deng Deng and Tanner Kerbs.

The contest will be broadcast from 3pm on Wednesday on ESPN via Foxtel and Kayo.