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Minor premiers Melbourne United have rounded out their preparations for the NBL finals series with a comfortable 102-80 victory over the slumping Adelaide 36ers. Forced to relocate their final home game to the Adelaide Entertainment Centre due to Victoria's COVID lockdown, United made light work of a struggling Sixers squad to close the regular season with an impressive 28-8 win-loss record. United now await the outcome of Tuesday's night's clash between South East Melbourne Phoenix and Brisbane Bullets to find out if they face Illawarra Hawks or the Phoenix in their quest to qualify for a third grand final series in four years.  Coach Dean Vickerman revealed that plans are underway for United to play their scheduled home games in the best-of-three semi-final series in NSW, though the venue has yet to be finalised. "Some of the wives and partners have moved up to NSW in the last four or five days. The opportunity to play in NSW and have our families or some of our families join us is going to be great," Vickerman said. Despite the uncertainty around the playoff schedule, guard Shea Ili expects the league leaders to be at their best regardless of the opponent or venue. "We are ready for anyone. We've been a tight group throughout this whole year and we feel like we have the best chance of winning this championship," Ili said. Melbourne used Sunday's clash to hand additional court time to their bench players in order to rest regular starters Mitch McCarron, Chris Goulding and Jock Landale with the postseason due to commence on June 10. United led 28-20 after the first and launched a three-point barrage to build a 53-40 advantage at halftime, Goulding connecting on three triples on his way to surpassing 100 three-pointers in a season for the third time in his career. Adelaide made a couple of runs in the second half but Melbourne did enough to win every quarter with Landale compiling 19 points and nine rebounds in 24 minutes while Scotty Hopson also added 19. Reserve guard Yudai Baba missed the Sixers clash with a foot problem but Vickerman expects the Japanese international to be ready for their opening semi-final game. Import Tony Crocker led Adelaide with 27 points and club stalwart Daniel Johnson compiled 18 points and 13 rebounds but the result capped a disappointing season for the seventh-placed Sixers as they closed the campaign with seven consecutive defeats. "It's always hard when you can't make playoffs to still come out there and compete and play the same way, with the same intensity,: Jonson said. "Unfortunately, we didn't do that on the back end of the season."
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