Cooks dominant as Kings too strong for Taipans in Indigenous Round

By Matt McQuade

Result: Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings 98 Cairns Taipans 88

Stats that matter: Kings 48 points in the paint; Kings 17 offensive rebounds; Rebound count Kings 49 Taipans 38; Kings 20 second chance points

Kings MVP: Xavier Cooks had his NBL-best 10^th double-double of the season.

Turning Point: An 11-5 run to start the third quarter put the Kings in control.

The game was over when: Ian Clark’s three-point play made it a 13-point ballgame with less than two minutes remaining.

Trending in the right direction: Led by Clark, the bench played some quality minutes, despite a shortened rotation.

Another day, another Xavier Cooks masterclass.

The uber-talented forward for the Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings continues to put himself in the frame for NBL MVP with one more brilliant performance, leading the Kings to a 98-88 victory over the Cairns Taipans on Sunday afternoon at Qudos Bank Arena in front of a monster crowd of 9,112.

Cooks (23 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, three blocked shots) did everything for his team and unsurprisingly was named the winner of the Claude Williams MVP award, as the purple and gold celebrated NBL Indigenous Round with their season-high sixth consecutive victory.

“We’re a plus-16 with ‘X’ on the floor,” Head Coach Chase Buford said.

“He’s terrific. I thought offensively tonight he was really really good, just abusing one on one coverages, versus (Stephen) Zimmerman or whoever they threw out there at him.

“Just a bunch of times we gave it to X, everybody got the heck out of the way and we score two points from it.

“He was excellent again, just as he was the game before and the game before that.”

Coach Buford wasn’t entirely happy about his team’s performance however, pointing to a defence that gave up 88 points to an undermanned Taipans unit that was missing three key contributors, including explosive import Tahjere McCall.

“I think it’s three games in a row now where our defence wasn’t quite up to the standard that we hold ourselves to,” Chase said.

“There were just a lot of things that weren’t quite at the level. We can be better defensively, we know that.

“That being said, offensively I thought we did a good job attacking their pressure, playing behind their press and going to get easy baskets in transition.”

Cairns came into the game as the lowest scoring team in the league and featured the lowest ranked offence, yet they belied those numbers with their constant attack at the rim, led by the dual punch of import point guard Scott Machado (26 points, four rebounds, seven assists, two steals) and big man Steven Zimmerman (16 points, 13 rebounds, five assists).

In a back-and-forth opening quarter that featured a whopping nine lead changes and four ties, Cairns’ import duo offset seven points from Cooks and six from the superb Jaylen Adams (21 points, four assists) to help the Taipans tie the game at 25 at the first break.

The second period followed much the same script with both teams unable to establish any kind of momentum, although Cooks and Jarell Martin (18 points, 10 rebounds) continued to dominate offensively, and a monster dunk from Xavier gave Sydney a 47-44 lead at intermission.

There was an extended break before the third period got underway thanks to the court requiring a clean up after the halftime festivities celebrating our great Indigenous culture, but once play commenced, the Kings took their effort up a couple of notches.

A triple from Dejan Vasiljevic (11 points, three assists) tipped things off, and when a wide-open Cooks drained a three, the Kings had opened the second half on what would prove to be a crucial 11-5 run, forcing Cairns’ head coach Adam Forde to burn an early timeout.

Cooks was unstoppable in the third and continued to pour it on, leading his team to a double figure advantage and making plays every time the Taipans threatened to get close.

Xavier had nine points in the period as the Kings turned for home leading 73-61.

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However, Cairns continued to show great heart in the face of the Cooks onslaught, and a 5-0 Taipan run to open the final period put them back in touch.

But the Kings responded, as they did all night, to the Cairns surge, and five points from Jaylen Adams capped a 7-0 run from the purple and gold that gave them an 80-66 advantage with less than seven minutes remaining.

Machado was fighting a rear-guard action and he brought the margin back to single figures, but that was the signal for Sydney’s third import Ian Clark (15 points) to take over.

Clark was outstanding down the stretch, repeatedly burning the Taipans in transition, and his nine points in the final frame kept the visitors at bay.

“He’s such a terrific person,” Coach Buford said of Ian.

“He’s a guy you love to come to work and be around every day.

“He’s such a good veteran and provides leadership for this team. He’s managed the troops out there since day one and he’s vocal.

“He’s a great person to have around our group and when you add him as a player, it helps us a ton.”

Adams found Martin for what is rapidly becoming a trademark alley-oop jam to give the crowd some fourth quarter showtime, and the Kings were never challenged from there as they equalled their highest score of the season, after dropping 98 points in their epic win over the Perth Wildcats in Round 12.

Remarkably, the team has scored at least 90 points in three straight games and remains undefeated this season when scoring 90 points or more – a perfect 6-0 record.

Sydney shot the ball at an efficient 48% from the field, were 9 of 26 from three-point range and 17 of 21 from the foul line. They outrebounded the Taipans 49-38, grabbed 17 offensive rebounds and had 48 points in the paint.

The Kings will now be on the road for the rest of March, commencing their journey with a Round 15 battle with the Taipans at the Cairns Convention Centre on Sunday 13 March. Tipoff is scheduled for 5:30pm AEDT.

WE ARE KINGS

BRYDENS LAWYERS SYDNEY KINGS 98 (Cooks 23, Adams 21, Martin 18)
CAIRNS TAIPANS 88 (Machado 26, Zimmerman 16, Deng 14) at Qudos Bank Arena.

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