Kings Coach Commends Backup Brigade

When Xavier Cooks joined Derrick Walton Jr on the sidelines for the second half of Sydney’s Game 2 win against New Zealand, the obvious question was which of their players was going to step up and fill the void.

The answer? All of them.

Justin Simon, Kouat Noi, Angus Glover and Jordi Hunter all played key roles in grabbing a hard-fought win over the Breakers to tie the Championship Series 1-1, ahead of Game 3 at Qudos Bank Arena on Friday.

Simon finished the game with 12 points, nine rebounds and six steals to claim Foot Locker Player of the Game honours, and managed to silence Breakers guard Will McDowell-White.

Noi saw more time on the floor due to Cooks’ absence in the second half and top scored for the Kings with 20 points, while adding two steals of his own.

“We probably had no business winning this game with the outs we had, but the guys who stepped up just stepped up in droves and got it done for us,” Kings head coach Chase Buford said post-game.

“Getting this one tonight was a character win.

“I’m really, really proud of the guys. They gave it everything.

“We were undermanned, playing with weird line-ups and a bunch of funky stuff going on, but they just came out and competed their balls off. I couldn’t be prouder of them right now.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Foot Locker Player of the Game Justin Simon spoke with Brook Ruscoe post-game in the Game 2?? win over the Breakers ?? <a href="https://t.co/4aEjMzva17">pic.twitter.com/4aEjMzva17</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1632281542826524674?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 5, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Walton Jr was forced from the floor in the final quarter of Friday’s Game 1 with severe cramps in both of his legs, while Cooks battled with soreness for much of the second half of the game, and those issues once again reared their heads in Game 2.

Walton Jr last just five minutes and added two rebounds before he was sat for the rest of the contest, while a decision was made to pull Cooks from the game at half-time.

“We knew before the game they were unlikely to give us much,” Buford said. “They were both turned out pretty tough after the other night.

“’X’, you could see was not having it tonight. He tried to play through it but he just couldn’t move. We got him out early even though he said he wanted to keep giving it a go, and we tried, but it was obvious he couldn’t give us much.

“Derrick, I took him out at the five-minute mark and he said ‘I can’t move my legs’. He had heavy legs.

“We had no point guards out there at times, but guys just stepped up and made plays.”

Due to the absence of a traditional centre at the Cairns Taipans, Hunter spent much of the Playoff Series against the Taipans on the bench. Against the duo of Dererk Pardon and Rob Loe in the Championship Series though, he’s been crucial.

“We weren’t particularly pleased with how Game 1 turned out for us, and it was a quick turnaround, which was probably fortunate in a lot of ways,” Hunter said.

“The solutions were simple … we were excited to come out and I think that showed that on the floor.

“We don’t want to have guys sitting out, but we have guys ready to get that extra burn and we were just able to lock in the gameplan a little bit harder, and it went a long way for us.”

When asked about the performances of key players Noi and Glover off the bench, Hunter kept his answer simple.

“They’re really good at basketball,” he said.

“I’m not going to act surprise that ‘KN’ and ‘Glove’ went off tonight.”

Game 3 of the NBL23 Championship Series tips off on Friday, March 10 at 7:30pm AEDT – live and free on ESPN via Kayo Freebies.