Why the Sydney Kings' bark is as bad as their bite

Fans have been catching on to the attack dog mentality that has been driving the Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings.

Earlier this season head coach Chase Buford urged his team to be "dogs on the ball", giving that high pressure, in your face defence a phrase to attach it too. And through footage capture on the broadcast or our Building the Kingdom documentary, eagle-eyed fans are spotting references to "dogs" or the team barking coming out of huddles.

VIEW EPSIODE FOUR OF BUILDING THE KINGDOM HERE

This week coach Buford explained to Matt White on SEN. he had told his team to “be like dogs”.

Buford explained it had been a season-long development, starting back in January against the Perth Wildcats at home.

In the home game against the Wildcats where Matt Hodgson scuffled with Dejan Vasiljevic, Buford explained the Kings closed out the game despite Perth going on a 10-0 run in the late moments of the game. He said that the game was critical in creating their new mantra of being dogs.

“We wanted to on that line with our mentality, it gets kinda funny, it just stuck a little bit and that’s the identity we’ve formed,” he told SEN.

“We talked about, being dogs, to counter the cats. They have some cool cats and cats don’t like being chased by dogs.

“We try to go out and be dogs every night on the floor and that was really the week that we started to believe in ourselves and form an identity of who we were and how we wanted to play.”

The Kings played against the Wildcats a few weeks later, the team broke out of a huddle barking at each other. Buford explained what it means to see his team adopt the mantra.

“Seeing on the broadcast the team breaking the huddle and barking and yelling dogs,” he said.

“It’s one of those fun coaching moments, that you love to see. I think we needed that a little bit, to find out who we were and that’s who we’ve become.”

You can see the boys barking at each other in Episode four of the Kings’ documentary Building the Kingdom on Kayo Sports for free.

This Saturday the Kings will head to Perth to take on the “cool cats” on Saturday, 8pm on ESPN and Kayo.

YOU CAN VIEW ALL THE EPISODES ON KAYO HERE