How to watch & talking points: Melbourne v Tasmania

17 Jan 2026

melbourne united

tasmania jackjumpers

hoopsfest

Rivals Melbourne United and Tasmania JackJumpers will clash in a HoopsFest blockbuster at Perth's RAC Arena.

Melbourne United (4th) v Tasmania JackJumpers (6th)
Saturday, January 17, 9.30pm AEDT (7.30pm AWST)
RAC Arena

How to watch‍

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Tickets

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Talking points

Running out of time
While Melbourne United still sit comfortably within the post-season picture, they are running out of time to find their early season form.

Losing both games last round, to the Cairns Taipans and then an undermanned Sydney team would have further added to their mental burden since the FIBA Break ended.

United face a big test against a Tasmania team that is playing the most complete basketball of their season and looking to push towards a home Play-In game.

The Tassie way is back
Ever since the JackJumpers entered the competition, they’ve had a unique play style that might not always be the most entertaining to watch - yet it’s very successful.

That style involves slowing the game down, executing every play down the floor and being physical defensively and it was on full display with their win over Adelaide last Friday.

Now that this team is healthy once again, they are playing at an extremely high level and are quickly becoming the team no one wants to face.

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What they're saying

United guard Tyson Walker on how the team plan to reverse their form:
“Just getting back to what was helping us win.

“Doing all the little things. You know, just our energy overall and just playing winning basketball, limiting the turnovers and mistakes.

“Winning in all extra aspects of the game, you know, loose balls, rebounds, and just trying to control the game as much as possible.”

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth on his team's recent strong play:
"I guess our work rate's been better and so has our concentration levels, and also getting guys healthy and getting guys back and in tune has been important.

"Look at a team like Adelaide who haven’t had any injuries this entire season that have been lengthy like we've gone through and every other team has gone through, so when you start to get your guys slowly back, and DJ (David Johnson) gets his feet underneath him, and Majok Deng comes back and Magnay is healthier, it's nice to just have the group together.

"We continue to just do what we do and keep things quite simple with what we do as far as how we practice and go about our business, and our formula is quite simple really to just do what we do and try to repeat it in the simplest ways possible."

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