Liam Santamaria breaks down "play of the season"

Picture: Damien Garth

Remember Sunday night? When Jaylen Adams dunked all over the Brisbane Bullets and then by some miracle flicked to the ball to Jarell Martin for a game-winning layup?

Yeah, we do, and so does Liam Santamaria.

NBL analyst Liam Santamaria deemed it as “The play of the season!” on Twitter and he was kind enough to sit down with Kings Media to break down the final moments of the game.

“It was a cool play call from Chase Buford,” Santamaria said.

“They have the early look on that action with Xavier Cooks, he curls around to the middle and then the pressure release from [Dejan] Vasiljevic, out to Jaylen Adams for the pick and roll with Jarell Martin."

“He’d been working off those actions in the preceding few minutes which is interesting because he had a couple looks at rejecting the screen and getting past Anthony Drmic for a few possessions. Sydney’s previous bucket was him rejecting the screen and getting past Drmic and knocking in the floater.”

Santamaria explained that Adams’ creativity off the dribble was hindered by Bullets' forward Robert Franks, who came from the switch and contested Adams well enough to prevent easy baskets. He explained that Adams going aggressive to the basket was his best choice.

“And that’s exactly what he did,” Santamaria said.

“From there he just left the Bullets in his wake and got all over the rim. It was an unbelievable play. Great play call from Chase Buford and just great poise and aggression from Jaylen Adams in a huge situation.”

In the post-game press conference Jaylen Adams said that his teammates were not getting many foul calls, so he decided that he had to attack the ring hard.

“I just knew the ref wasn’t going to bail us out,” Adams said.

“I thought Jarell [Martin] and Xav [Cooks] got fouled going to the rim late in the game … so you had to go in and finish it strong and that was my plan.”

In the pick and roll, Santamaria said that the Bullets defence made a mistake allowing Adams to reject the screen and get past his defender. It left Adams a straight-line drive to the basket; forcing Robert Franks to worry about both Jarell Martin and Adams. 

The last-minute of the game was a scramble, but Santamaria said that it was clearly designed to have Adams as the conductor of the offence late.

“He’s clearly the guy in that moment,” he said.

“It looks like they do look to Xavier off that dive to a curl, which would have been an option. But you quickly see Cooks point towards Adams to say to Vasiljevic "DJ, get it into Jaylen’s hands," and the rest was history.”

Santamaria praised Adams' basketball IQ and his situational awareness to not only know the refs weren’t going to call light fouls but the quick flick off to Martin to win the game.

“He [Adams] didn’t try to do anything special and just a perfectly timed it,” he said.

“Changing from going up for a shot and then passing through the defence to Martin underneath the basket. These are split-second decisions by elite players to win the game.”  

Adams explained his thought process in the moment at the post-game press conference.

“I’m not going to lie, I jumped to shoot it. I was going to shoot it,” Adams said.

“I peeked at the clock and saw there was enough time to get it to him [Martin]. I just fired a bullet. And I trust Jarell. I knew he was going to catch and finish it.”

Kings Media asked Liam Santamaria if Jaylen Adams has cemented himself in the MVP conversation.

“Absolutely,” Liam said.

“Adams is fourth in points, third in assists and his arrow is pointing straight up, as he gets comfortable in the league and with his teammates. The moment he signed in the league I spoke about him as an MVP-calibre player, that’s how good he is and that’s why a number of teams were trying to get his signature."

“And it’s why with Adams healthy, X [Cooks], Martin, and DJ (Dejan Vasiljevic) healthy and out on the floor that the Kings are steamrolling into the top four.”

The Kings will take on the Perth Wildcats at home on Saturday night at 7.45pm at Qudos Bank Arena. If you want to see one of the NBL's leading MVP candidates, get your tickets here. 

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