Kings stunned by 36ers at Qudos Bank Arena

By Matt McQuade

Result: Adelaide 36ers 90 Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings 82

Stats that matter: 36ers 17 offensive rebounds; 36ers 21 second chance points; Bench points 36ers 53 Kings 8; Kings 15 turnovers

Kings MVP: Jaylen Adams tried to carry his team offensively for much of the game.

Turning Point: An 11-0 third quarter run from the 36ers set the Kings back on their heels.

The game was over when: Mitch McCarron ended it with a pair of free throws.

Trending in the right direction: Makur Maker did a solid job up front and continues to improve.

The streak is over.

In front of the biggest crowd of the season at Qudos Bank Arena, the Adelaide 36ers stunned the Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings on Easter Sunday 90-82 to end Sydney’s winning run at 13, the equal-second best winning streak in franchise history.

10,260 fans were sent home disappointed as the Kings lost for the first time at their home stadium in the past seven games.

Four three pointers in the fourth quarter from the 36ers broke open a tied game at 72 after a lay-up from Jaylen Adams (28 points, seven rebounds, five assists), and Adelaide was able to hold on after a frantic late charge from the home team.

But in truth, the Kings struggled for much of the afternoon to build any kind of momentum against an Adelaide outfit that had nothing to play for, yet closed a brilliant Easter weekend with road wins over Perth and Sydney.

“I don’t know if it was tired legs, and we can make a lot of excuses, but at the end of the day they just wanted it more than us,” Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings Head Coach Chase Buford said.

“I think it’s clear on the offensive rebounds for sure, but just 50-50 balls, little plays – they were just the first to it all night. We were just second best.

“I don’t know if it was the emotions (from Thursday night’s win in Wollongong); there’s a little bug going through the team, but at the end of the day we gotta play.

“We didn’t quite have the juice required to win. I thought both to start the game and the second half our starters did a great job to set the tone and give us a lead, were playing well, but our bench group came in and just pissed it away.

“That’s probably where the game was lost with our sub patterns – I went with different guys and it didn’t work.”

And the stats bear out Coach Buford’s analysis. Adelaide’s bench outscored Sydney’s reserves by a whopping 53-8, with too much of an offensive load carried by too few in purple and gold.

With Jarell Martin sidelined through illness and Angus Glover out with knee soreness, the 36ers also took advantage of an undermanned and clearly labouring Kings’ squad, dominating the glass with 17 offensive boards against the best defensive rebounding team in the league, converting those second chances into 21 points.

The tale of woe continued for the home team as they also finished with an uncharacteristically high 15 turnovers, and again Adelaide was able to take advantages of those Sydney miscues with 14 points.

But as poor as the Kings were for much of the night in what was a flat display across the board, the team showed enormous heart to keep punching, even when things weren’t going their way.

After a tight first half featuring five lead changes and with neither team able to establish a break of larger than seven points, the Kings came alive early in the third quarter thanks to Adams and Xavier Cooks (21 points, 13 rebounds, two assists, two blocked shots) and established a nine-point advantage.

An Adams triple increased that margin to a game-high 10 points with less than four minutes left, and it seemed like Sydney were about to break out of their funk.

But Adelaide silenced the huge crowd with an 11-0 run keyed by Dusty Hannahs (22 points, three assists) and the unlikely personage of development player Isaac Gattorna (10 points, three rebounds).

In retrospect, it was the key moment of the ballgame. The 36ers rode that momentum to a 62-61 advantage at the end of three, the Kings were struggling to get anything going, and Adelaide had a real sniff.

Sydney opened the final period with a 6-2 run, but that was quickly snuffed out by a three-point play from Gattorna and a steal and dunk from Tad Dufelmeier. Makur Maker (15 points, six rebounds) knocked down two free throws and both Cooks and Adams had baskets to keep the scoreboard ticking over, but Adelaide responded yet again.

It was a three-pointer from Sunday Dech (11 points, three rebounds) that gave the 36ers a lead they would ultimately not relinquish, but that was quickly followed by a barrage of three more triples from Daniel Johnson (16 points, 11 rebounds), Hannahs and Dech and the 36ers blew the margin out to 10 points with two minutes left.

In desperation, Coach Buford threw out a smaller line-up with the intention of switching everything, and Adams and Cooks reduced the 36er lead to just four with less than 40 seconds remaining to give hope of an unlikely comeback.

However, Hyrum Harris made one of two at the line, Dejan Vasiljevic (10 points, three rebounds) missed a triple, and Adelaide were able to close it out from the charity stripe in a loss for the Kings that drops them to 18-8 on the season but still holding to second place on the NBL ladder.

Sydney shot the ball at 46% from the field, were 10 of 29 from three-point range and 12 of 17 from the free throw line in a game that, while a setback, is maybe a defeat where the team can now reset, refocus, work on some things, and attack the final two games of the regular season.

And that NBL22 regular season concludes this week. On Thursday night, the team travels to Cairns to face the Taipans at the Cairns Convention Centre, with tipoff scheduled for 7:30pm AEST.

The Kings then close the minor rounds with a blockbuster matchup against the Illawarra Hawks at Qudos Bank Arena on Sunday 24 April. The game will be played on behalf of the Starlight Children’s Foundation, with a donation made to the charity for each three-pointer made by the Kings. Tickets for that clash are on sale via Ticketek.

#WE ARE KINGS

ADELAIDE 36ERS 90 (Hannahs 22, Johnson 16, Dech 11)
BRYDENS LAWYERS SYDNEY KINGS 82 (Adams 28, Cooks 21, MK Maker 15) at Qudos Bank Arena.

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