Kings' ability to 'stick with it' impresses Goorjian

Brian Goorjian was relieved that the Sydney Kings were so close despite the Brisbane Bullets dominating a host of areas, knowing that come the fourth quarter his team could take over.

There were aspects of the first three quarters against the Bullets at Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Saturday night that were alarming to Goorjian.

By three quarter-time, Brisbane had 22 offensive rebounds to Sydney's three and were out-hustling the Kings in a lot of ways, but what Goorjian liked was that his team was just two points down.

Having already come from behind six times this season, including 48 hours earlier at home to the South East Melbourne Phoenix, Goorjian backed his team to deliver again in the final period.

Sydney held Brisbane to just 15 points in the last 10 minutes while putting up 22 themselves including a game turning 5-0 run, before Cam Oliver grabbed the biggest offensive rebound of the game to seal the win late.

The Bullets still ended the game with 29 offensive boards to eight, while scoring 20 second chance points off those, and thanks to that they ended up taking 88 field goals to just 59 from the Kings.

What Sydney did, though, was attack the basket, with Xavier Cooks and Jaylen Adams leading the way in that regard and helping their get to the foul line for 31 free-throw attempts.

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"We were trying to get our feet in the paint, trying to play at pace and I thought they (the Bullets) did have the upper hand in some of those areas, but they didn’t get away from us," Goorjian said.

"Then in the fourth quarter, we covered those boxes and the boxes we didn’t cover they weren’t 20 up, they were only two up, three up or four up, and we hung in there with JA, Cooks making plays off the bounce, and finding people and getting their feet in the paint.

"Statistically it's kind of an alarming look, but we kept it a grind and did what we needed to do to win. We hung in there and then we've just got this belief in the fourth quarter.

"Everything seems defensively to go up a level and we guarded their perimeters, covered down on the post, tightened up the boards and went to where we needed to go to win a game."

It has been reported that the man answering the SOS from the Kings to come in as the new import point-guard to allow Adams to spend more time in the two spot is former Tennessee Volunteers captain Lamonte Turner.

Watch Alex Toohey and Brian Goorjian's post-game press conference via the Sydney Kings’ YouTube channel above. While you’re there, be sure to hit subscribe, to ensure you never miss out on any of our great videos.

Goorjian is looking forward to everything he expects his new man to bring.

"I haven’t seen him at all, but in our situation, we want a guy that can help and get JA off the ball, distribute the ball, be good in the locker room and defend," Goorjian said.

"We haven’t brought a guy to score 50 points and take a heavy role, we want just a piece that can carry the ball and get JA off the ball and make the other guys around him better defensively.

"We know he can do those two things and we understand he was captain at Tennessee, which is a big-time program, and he's a great teammate.

"That's going to help us coming down this back stretch. D-day is the United game for him to play (to qualify for Finals)."

Next up for the Hoops Capital side is a clash on Thursday, January 9 against Melbourne United at Qudos Bank Arena.

Tickets to that round 16 clash, tipping off at 7.15pm, are still available here.