NBL run home: Why Adelaide 36ers have advantage over JackJumpers and Bullets

Tasmania, Brisbane and Adelaide are locked in a three-way race for the last spot in the play-in. Despite what the ladder says, the 36ers look like the team to beat.

Barring incident – which is always a chance in the NBL – the top-five teams are just about set, but the real intrigue lies in the battle for sixth.

We call it a battle, but it’s almost a war of attrition, with Tasmania and Brisbane decimated by injury while Adelaide has emerged as the favourite to be last-team standing despite a torrid season.

Heading into round 18, which tips off Thursday, Tassie (12-13, sixth) has the advantage on the table and owns the season-series tie-breaker against each club.

But the Jackies have lost five of six and face a brutal run home that features three of the top-five teams — a task they’ll have to navigate without a trio of key players in Will Magnay, Sean Macdonald and Majok Deng, who are all likely out for the season.

Can Banno’s Bullets find a way? Picture: Getty Images

Jordon Crawford has had the hot hand, but the JackJumpers have struggled. Picture: Getty Images

With seven defeats in their past eight contests — the past four by percentage destroying margins of 19, 27, 31 and 34 — and a litany of injuries that left them with just nine fit players in their past two games, the Bullets (10-15, eighth) will need to pull a Bradbury to get themselves into the top six.

Adelaide (11-13, seventh) has the health advantage with a full roster to call on, an easier run home and appears to have weathered the storm of seven losses in eight games with four wins in its past six.

The Sixers’ one-point loss to the Jackies – which came at the buzzer in overtime earlier this month – could end up being the one that got away but this talent-laden but volatile squad just has to avoid tearing itself apart and hope Tassie continues to stumble.

If that happens and they do make the top six, star guard Kendric Davis is 100 per cent right: “No team in the league wanna play us, I don’t care who they is.”