Ultimate Success: Revisiting United’s first NBL Championship five years on

It’s a pleasant enough day in Auckland.

The sun has hidden behind the clouds for much of the morning, and the wind has its standard level of bite, but it’s far from cold.

To be honest, it likely wouldn’t have mattered if it was the ugliest, rainiest, coldest day in New Zealand's history for Melbourne United.

They just made their first NBL Championship series.

The mood is one of excitement. Having overcome a stacked NZ Breakers outfit on the road, in overtime, with a game winning layup from Josh Boone has the young franchise's players eagerly anticipating a return to Melbourne.

Josh Boone's game winning layup

Just who they will face in the best-of-five Championship series remains to be seen.

It could be the Perth Wildcats, who are looking to secure their third straight NBL Championship, and fourth in five years.

The Cats have some work to do however, as they currently trail the Adelaide 36ers 1-0 in the series, but will have the Red Army behind them for Game 2.

Or perhaps it will be those Sixers, who have followed up a disappointing Semi-Final exit in 2017 with a strong campaign.

Regardless who it is, United captain Chris Goulding knows it’s not going to be easy.

After winning a Championship in his first year in the league as a Development Player with the Brisbane Bullets, Goulding has gone nine long years without an appearance on the league’s grandest stage.

He can’t help but look forward. He doesn’t know what to expect; no one does, but still, he looks towards the nearest person for someone to share his thoughts with.

“I remember getting back on the plane to come back to Australia,” Chris said.

“We had just made the Grand Final, and I was on the aerobridge with Tai (Wesley).

“I asked him, ‘How do you think we’re going to go, man?’ and he just turned around and said ‘We’re going to win the championship.’

“He was that confident. We had that level of confidence… that was the moment I realised ‘Oh shit, we’ve got a good chance at this.”

Why wouldn’t Wesley be confident? He’s been here before, twice, in fact.

In his first two seasons in the NBL, the Utah-born big-man went to the Championship series each year, taking home a ring in 2015 and coming up just short of going back-to-back in 2016.

So he’s got the Championship credentials, and looking at each of his potential opponents, he’s unfazed, having gone a combined 6-2 against Perth and Adelaide this season.

While he likely has no preference, Adelaide’s one-point victory over Perth in Game 2 of the Semi-Finals ensures a meeting with the Sixers.

Wesley is thrilled.

“To be honest I was super confident,” he told Melbourne United Media.

“We had swept them 4-0 (in the regular season) and I thought we were going to sweep them 3-0 in the finals.”  

This confidence was shared throughout the team, as it would be when you’re poised to face a team that hasn’t beaten you in over 12 months.

“Moving onto Adelaide, we swept them but I want to say we played them four times early in the season, so there was a level of confidence but also the element of the unknown,” said veteran forward David Barlow, who to this point in his career had already won three NBL Championships.

“Going into the series I felt confident and I felt that, not that we deserved to win, but it would have been really disappointing if we weren't able to go out there and finish the season with a Championship.”

Goulding however was ready for the Sixers to come out swinging.

“The team that we beat four times, they were charged up, they were juiced up, they were ready to go. The level that each team went up when they got to the finals was immense and something I’ll never forget.”

Fast forward to Game 1, a full 11 days after United’s last time on the court and the lift in intensity was evident.

The Sixers attacked inside relentlessly, while MU relied more heavily on the long-ball, knocking down 13 threes in the game, leading to the home side eventually running away with an 11-point victory.

Pete Hooley - Grand Final Game 1

Looking to ride their momentum into Game 2, United faced a relentless challenge away from their home court.

In Adelaide, the Sixers looked nearly unstoppable, with the home-side holding onto the lead for 39 of 40 minutes.

It was a unique challenge for Dean Vickerman, who in just his first season as Melbourne United’s Head Coach, had the team so close to their ultimate goal.

“Adelaide had played really fast so there’s always that challenge when you play against a group that can really put points on the board and Joey Wright (Adelaide’s Head Coach) had that team humming,” he said.

“Joey’s teams always have a little edge about them. When they got on their home floor in Adelaide and got a little bit of momentum it was really tough to stop.”

The win however came at a cost for the Sixers, with star import Josh Childress ruling himself out for the series after a collision with Barlow in the post.

Josh Childress suffers a broken scapula - Grand Final Game 2

With the series so far a stalemate, Game 3 provided more of the same, with the intensity reaching a boiling point heading into the half time break.

Following a Casey Prather triple to give United back their lead, the import tangled with fiery guard Nathan Sobey as the two sides heeded for their huddles.

The ensuing dust-up, which culminated in a Sobey headbutt, eliminated the future Boomers star from the remainder of the game, helping United take control of the second half and put themselves in a Championship winning position ahead of Game 4.

Grand Final Game 3 - Nathan Sobey is ejected

While the team’s confidence was high, Pete Hooley, an Adelaide native, knew securing a series-ending victory on the road would be a tall task.

“We were comfortable we were going to win at home, but how were we going to do in Adelaide?” Hooley relented.

“That was my home town, I knew they were going to be crazy.”

In what was his first season of professional basketball, Hooley found himself being called upon in big moments across the series.

Injuries and foul trouble forced him to play 17 minutes in Game 1, which saw him finish with five points, five rebounds, four assists and a steal. His stout defence brought him into Game 3 for a significant stint.

Looking at his teammates, Goulding praised Hooley, along with the rest of Melbourne’s supporting class for lifting the group throughout the season.

“So often, that’s what makes championship teams, the guys that don’t get as many headlines or don’t play as many minutes,” Goulding said.

“They're so pivotal in the way that they play and the way that they approach the game and their role within the team.

“It’s so often the role players, the guys that don’t play as many minutes, are the ones that contribute so much and really make championship teams.”

However, heading into Adelaide, Hooley and his teammates faced their toughest task yet.

What United hoped would be a night they would never forget turned into one they looked to quickly erase from their memory.

After scoring the first points of the contest, United were crushed by Adelaide’s ability to get into the paint and draw fouls.

The Sixers shot an astounding 48 free throws, a mark that remains an NBL Grand Final series record, in what ended as a nine-point victory for the home side.

Grand Final Game 4 - Kyle Adnam, Pete Hooley and Craig Moller

Forced home for what would be, win or lose, their final game of the season, the tension permeated the group.

“After losing Game 4, I think that confidence got shaken a little bit,” Barlow said.

“There was an expectation that the series wouldn’t go to five games, so when it did there was somewhat a bit of surprise, but also fear.”

Tai Wesley echoed these sentiments, adding how appreciative he was that the decisive game was to be played in Melbourne, in front of a sold-out United crowd.

“I remember thinking how grateful I was that we had home-court advantage because Adelaide is a tough place to win and they were a tough team on their home court,” Wesley continued.

“It was eclectic. I remember walking in the arena and just feeling like the energy was crazy. Every play felt like the biggest play of the season. We could feed off their energy and how electric they made the atmosphere.”

On a team stacked with so many stars like Casper Ware, Casey Prather and Josh Boone, who all came up with massive performances across United’s finals run, it was Goulding that came out firing to start Game 5.

Grand Final Game 4 - Casey Prather, Chris Goulding, Tai Wesley, Josh Boone and Casper Ware

In front of a crowd of over 10,000, CG43 delivered, scoring 13 points in the opening term to help open up a 34-22 advantage.

Seeing this masterful display, Hooley said in his mind, the game was already over.

“CG put that to bed at quarter-time,” Hooley said.

“I never thought we were going to lose after what he did to start that game because he’s a big-time player, a big-game player. I felt the ultimate calmness.”

While Hooley may have felt this way, clearly no one told the Sixers, who kept fighting to make their way back into the game through Shannon Shorter, Mitch Creek and Daniel Johnson.

Needing to slow Adelaide’s run and rebuild his side’s lead, Vickerman leaned on the experience of his lineup.

“That team was pretty composed, they enjoyed big moments,” he explained.

“Casper loved big moments, CG loved big moments… When you look down that roster, even though there were some challenges for us there was certainly some good composure where we knew how to execute well enough to get the shots that we wanted and there was a confidence that we could always get those stops needed.” 

Casper Ware

Through sheer will and near perfect execution, Melbourne’s lead grew down the stretch, ballooning to as many as 23 points with five minutes remaining.

Despite the commanding lead, United leaders stayed composed, not allowing themselves to be consumed by the moment.

“I was so locked in that it didn’t even hit me until we were up in the teens with 18 seconds left,” Goulding said.

“It was like that the whole series, you couldn’t relax until it was all said and done.”

However, as the shot-clock switched off and the game clock ticked down ever closer to zero, it all became too much for Goulding, who broke into tears on the court before being embraced by his teammates.

Grand Final Game 5 - Chris Goulding and his teammates

Examining that moment, and the feelings afterwards, Goulding said his joy came from delivering a Championship to the people he had been through the fire with day in and day out.

“I want to win Championships for the people that are within the group more so than me,” he explained.

“I wanted Dave Andersen to get another one, his 20th or whatever it was, I wanted Barlow to get another championship after winning so many, I wanted these young guys that had been in the league one or two years to experience it first, the way I did with the Bullets.

“I was so naive to the fact we’d won a Championship (in 2007), and then to have to wait 11 years to experience it again, it’s not unfair, but it made this one all the more special.

“As you go along, you want to win with the people you go into battle with, your family and your friends more than yourself and that release of emotion was a big part of that.”

Finishing with a 100-82 victory, bringing an end to what some have described as the greatest NBL Finals series of all time, and securing Melbourne United its first Championship.

Grand Final Game 5 - NBL Champions

The success was validation for those within the club who pushed for major change leading into the year.

Perhaps the most important thing that was different from previous seasons was the culture within the group; an aspect that topped Vickerman’s priority list when he entered at the start of the year.

His players could not speak highly enough about the coach, who brought with him a Championship pedigree from his time with the New Zealand Breakers.

“When a guy that’s won before comes into the group you immediately take notice,” Goulding elaborated.

“Immediately it was like ‘Okay, he knows how to get it done, let’s do what he says.’

“A lot of coaches are different, but Dean has that decisiveness, he’s a very matter of fact, down to the point, no nonsense, let’s win type of guy and I think that was refreshing for our group and it was refreshing to see guys buy into that.”

Barlow echoed these sentiments.

“He was really great, it was so good to have Deano come in and essentially change the direction of the club and to be honest change the direction of a lot of our careers.

Grand Final Game 5 - Dean Vickerman and Chris Goulding

“From the start it was evident that we were fortunate to be in the place that we were.”

The culture Vickerman established has guided Melbourne to nothing but success since he came into the club, with the future Boomers interim coach leading United to a second title in 2021, as well as five consecutive winning seasons.

The club will be hoping to once again tap into Vickerman’s culture and experience as it heads towards NBL24, and potentially another deep playoff push.

Opening home game of the 2018-19 NBL season - The Championship banner is raised

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0iQ3D8rvAHA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>