Kings dig deep to overrun Phoenix

The South East Melbourne Phoenix's rapidly improved defence was again on show for a lot of Friday night at Qudos Bank Arena, but the Sydney Kings took charge led by Jaylen Adams in the final seven minutes to win 74-69.

The Phoenix have significantly turned their season around after losing the first five games and it's all come at the defensive end since they made the change in coach releasing Mike Kelly, and now having welcomed Josh King.

South East Melbourne had won four of five matches since having gone from conceding 93 points a game to just 77 in that stretch, and for most of Friday night in Sydney they had the clamps right on the Kings.

The Phoenix held Sydney to just 14 points in the first quarter, 18 in the second and 17 in the third, and were able to do enough at the offensive end themselves to be leading by 10 points still with seven minutes to play when former King Angus Glover hit a three-point bomb.

However, it was all Sydney from that moment starting with a run of 11 straight points beginning with seven of those from Kouat Noi before former MVP's Adams and Xavier Cooks put them in front for the first time in the game.

After the Phoenix briefly regained the lead with a three to Owen Foxwell, Adams took over to show his sore back is on the improve with the game's last seven points including a dagger corner three.

That saw the Kings finish the game scoring 20 points to five over the last seven minutes to shake off the stifling Phoenix defence and go from 10 down to win by five and to improve to 7-5 on the season.

Adams was brilliant for Sydney with 20 points and seven assists while Cooks wasn’t far behind with 17 points and 12 rebounds with Noi adding another 16 points despite a scoreless night from Cam Oliver on just three shot attempts and 10 minutes.

Kings coach Brian Goorjian was anything but pleased despite the win.

"(What pleased me) was finding five guys that would play together and play hard," he said.

"I think that came late in the game and if there was one good element to it, it was that and to be truthful I didn’t want to do that with JA (Adams) tonight.

"I didn’t think he was going to have to do that but I don’t remember feeling like this after a win in a long, long time so there's a sense of relief but it was a real kick in the guts tonight, I'm really disappointed."

The Phoenix were in control for the game for most of the opening 35 minutes with Glover finishing with 17 points against his former team.

It was a rough offensive night overall, though, as they went 34 per cent overall and 9/41 from deep with Matt Hurt and Nathan Sobey combining for 18 points on 8/37 including 1/19 from downtown.

Phoenix coach Josh King couldn’t fault his team's effort most of the night.

"I'm proud of my team and I thought they really fought, and competed, and won a lot of areas of the game," he said.

"But in the last five minutes of the game we couldn’t make a shot, that was one thing even when we got pretty good looks.

"Then they got physical, the crowd got into it and it's nothing to be ashamed about, Sydney's a really good team and everybody knows that."

Angus Glover was fired up facing the team he helped lift to two championship and knocked down two early three-pointers for the Phoenix with the visitors soon on top 18-9.

It was their defence again outstanding and they ended up holding the Kings to 14 points in all of the opening period on 1/8 three-point shooting and with five turnovers which helped South East Melbourne to the 22-14 advantage.

Sydney did get triples to open the second quarter from Kouat Noi and Izayah Le'afa, but the Phoenix's defence continued to lock them down and kept the Kings to just 32 points for the opening half on 36 per cent shooting.

South East Melbourne weren’t on fire offensively themselves with just 34 per cent shooting but they were leading 36-32 at the break.

The Phoenix opened the second half on fire with a 9-3 run to open up a double-figure advantage and by three quarter-time they were still on top 56-49.

A three-pointer to Joe Wieskamp early in the final frame had South East Melbourne back on top by 10 but the game wasn’t done yet.

After Glover hit his third three to keep the Phoenix up 10, the Kings went on a 9-0 scoring run with the first seven of those points coming from Noi and suddenly it was a one-point game with five minutes to play.

That turned into an 11-0 run when Jaylen Adams knocked down a mid-range jumper with four minutes on the clock to give the Kings the first lead of the night.

Owen Foxwell answered with a three for the Phoenix, but the Kings wouldn’t be denied with their home crowd behind them with the next five points coming from Adams as they went up by five and ended up winning by that margin.

The Kings now don't play again until next Saturday in Wollongong against the Illawarra Hawks while the Phoenix are straight back home to play host to the shorthanded Cairns Taipans on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

SYDNEY KINGS 74 (Adams 20, Cooks 17, Noi 16)

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 69 (Glover 17, Sobey 12, Wieskamp 9)

BOX SCORE