Oliver fires, but United prevail

Cam Oliver and Jaylen Adams did all they could to lift the Sydney Kings but the NBL championship favourites fell to a third straight loss with Melbourne United prevailing 87-83 in a hotly contested match up.

The Kings arrived at John Cain Arena on Thursday night after disappointing losses to undermanned Perth Wildcats and New Zealand Breakers outfits who outworked them.

Coming to Melbourne to play United meant Sydney had to put the hard hats on to compete. That's exactly what they did with Adams playing through the pain of a back injury bravely and Oliver standing up for a powerful performance.

Adams played through that discomfort for 13 points and seven assists in almost 27 minutes while Oliver produced 18 points and 16 rebounds in 29 minutes, but it wasn’t quite enough against Melbourne.

It was a tight battle all evening but two late threes from Jack White and then his defensive rebound sealed the win for Melbourne who improve to 7-3 as a result with three wins in-a-row.

White was superb once more with 14 points and 11 rebounds with Matthew Dellavedova top-scoring off the bench with 16 points and five assists.

"Delly did a great job of setting the platter for me at the end and I just tried to shoot the ball with confidence," White said.

"The guys do a good job of instilling that in me so I just tried to make the right play for the group.

"Fortunately it worked out ... I was just playing off instinct so it was a pretty good feeling."

Chris Goulding also hit 14 points and despite going 2/10 from three, his late make was crucial with Ian Clark adding nine points, Tanner Krebs eight and Flynn Cameron eight.

Sydney coach Brian Goorjian changed up plenty after the losses to Perth and New Zealand, with powerhouse rookie Keli Leaupepe not only losing his start, but not playing at all.

Shaun Bruce also didn’t hit the floor nor did Makuach Maluach while the minutes shrunk for Tyler Robertson and Kouat Noi.

Goorjian put Izayah Le'afa (six points, two assists) and Jaylin Galloway (eight points, two rebounds, two steals) into the starting group with Xavier Cooks again doing a power of work for 18 points, six rebounds and four assists.

The Kings also lost Galloway to a shoulder injury in the dying minutes.

Goorjian was disappointed by a lop-sided foul count, declaring it a "huge factor" in a "pretty fudging physical" encounter.

"I've been in the game a long time and this is now two (away) games in a row - in 40 years it doesn't happen very often - they make more free-throws than we shoot," Goorjian said.

"Tonight was a pretty physical game, they're a physical team - we shoot six free-throws, seven fouls for the whole game. We can't win, can't beat a team like that.

"It was very, very lop-sided as far as the deal goes. This game is a fine line, everyone's looking for an edge and that foul line's a big one."

"I'm emotional tonight because I thought we addressed what we needed to address and we had the chance to do it, and that stares you in the face."

It was basket for basket virtually the whole way through in the first quarter until a Jack White put back dunk helped Melbourne to a 21-17 lead just before quarter-time.

Jaylin Galloway responded with a three-pointer to bring the Kings back within a point by the end of one before Sydney kept that momentum going to start the second term and four quick points from Xavier Cooks helped them to the three-point lead.

United were back on top in response through an Ian Clark three ball before he soon added a second bomb to make it a six-point game, and Kyle Bowen also landed from downtown for Melbourne to be leading by seven.

After Melbourne's lead grew to double-figures, the Kings hit back starting with a three of their own to Next Star Alex Toohey before Jaylen Adams and Izayah Le'afa also hit from beyond the arc to cut United's half-time edge to 46-43.

A pair of three balls late in the third quarter pushed Melbourne out to a six-point lead but Sydney again cut the deficit to two by three quarter-time before Cam Oliver threw down a monster dunk early in the fourth.

Precious little continued to separate the two teams and after Oliver put the Kings up two with three minutes to play, a minute later Chris Goulding hit a huge three ball for the home team.

Sydney answered with a couple of buckets to Adams but White hit from behind the arc for Melbourne with 30 seconds to go to give his team the three-point edge.

White then grabbed the huge defensive rebound on a miss from Adams, Matthew Dellavedova made one at the stripe and Melbourne held on to win by four.

Both teams back up for a second game as part of Round 7 as well with the Kings back home to host the Tasmania JackJumpers on Sunday. Melbourne remains home to host the New Zealand Breakers on Monday night for Melbourne Cup eve.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

MELBOURNE UNITED 87 (Dellavedova 16, Goulding 14, White 14)

SYDNEY KINGS 83 (Cooks 18, Oliver 18, Adams 13)

BOX SCORE