MELBOURNE United and Sydney Kings will tip off the National Basketball League finals series this Thursday at Melbourne Arena. The three-game semi-final series poises two of the competition\u2019s more fancied line-ups against each other, with their strong rivalry set to resume. While United lays claim to bragging rights as it stands having gone 3-1 in meetings with the Kings this season, anything can happen come the post-season and the Andrew Bogut-led Sydney will count themselves in with a decent chance of an upset win. Reigning premiers, Melbourne will have the added confidence of knowing this will be Sydney\u2019s first finals appearance in six seasons, as well as earning the advantage of a second home game if required.<\/p>\n
On the same night, Perth Wildcats host Brisbane Bullets at RAC Arena in what will be the Bullets\u2019 first finals appearance since 2008. Perth\u2019s home court advantage may count for more in this fixture, with the sides going 2-2 in four clashes this season in what looks like an even match-up.<\/p>\n
The winners of each tie will meet in a best of five grand final series next week, with dates yet to be confirmed. Fixtures for the semi-final series can be found below.<\/p>\n
Semi Final Series 1<\/strong><\/p>\n Thursday 28th Feb 10.20pm AEDT \/ 7.20pm Local \u2013 Perth v Brisbane. RAC Arena \u2013 Live FOX Sports. 9Go! from 11.20pm.<\/p>\n Saturday 2nd Mar 2.50pm AEDT \/ 1.50pm Local \u2013 Brisbane v Perth. Brisbane Entertainment Centre \u2013 Live 9Go! and FOX Sports. Live on Nine in Perth from 11.30am (local)<\/p>\n Monday 4th Mar 9.50pm AEDT \/ 6.50pm Local (if required) \u2013 Perth v Brisbane. RAC Arena \u2013 Live FOX Sports. 9Go! from 11.20pm<\/p>\n Semi Final Series 2<\/strong><\/p>\n Thursday 28th Feb 7.50pm \u2013 Melbourne v Sydney. Melbourne Arena \u2013 Live FOX Sports. 9Go! from 11.20pm<\/p>\n Sunday 3rd Mar 2.20pm \u2013 Sydney v Melbourne. Qudos Bank Arena \u2013 Live 9GO! and FOX Sports<\/p>\n Tuesday 5th Mar 7.50pm (if required) \u2013 Melbourne v Sydney. Melbourne Arena \u2013 Live FOX Sports. 9Go! from 11.20pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MELBOURNE United and Sydney Kings will tip off the National Basketball League finals series this Thursday at Melbourne Arena. The three-game semi-final series poises two of the competition\u2019s more fancied line-ups against each other, with their strong rivalry set to resume. While United lays claim to bragging rights as it stands having gone 3-1 in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":2209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[925,223,219,924,221,920],"class_list":["post-2771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl","tag-brisbane-boomers","tag-melbourne-united","tag-nbl","tag-nbl-finals","tag-perth-wildcats","tag-sydney-kings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}