claimed they let Cotton go in a controversial call<\/a> to secure the rest of their roster.<\/p>\nBut their replacement guard in Jones lasted just five games before the decision was made to cut ties.<\/p>\n
In Saturday\u2019s thrilling contest, the Taipans fought to the end without their own injured superstar in Jack McVeigh. <\/p>\n
But Cotton once again demonstrated himself a class above, scoring in basically every way imaginable – and finished with 16 free throws at 100%.<\/p>\n
Cairns were never out of the hunt, but it also never quite felt like they had enough juice to close the barrier to less than two possessions. <\/p>\n
Every time the margin was cut close, the 36ers went to Cotton for a bucket, and more often than not he delivered. <\/p>\n
Flynn Cameron was the 36ers next best offensively, nailing several timely threes to keep the Taipans at bay and shift the momentum. <\/p>\n
But ultimately it was Cotton who defined this matchup, essentially single-handedly overcoming the home side to secure victory.<\/p>\n
Bryce Cotton drives under pressure.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Ref woes for Snakes<\/p>\n
Tensions boiled over at the Snakepit, with Andrew Andrews ejected late into the contest after a protesting having tried to draw a foul on a three point shot with his side three points in arrears. <\/p>\n
It was a brutal moment, as the Taipans lost both their best scorer on the night and handed their opposition a two-possession lead via the technical free throw which followed. <\/p>\n
It came after coach Adam Forde was whacked with a technical foul earlier in the piece as a result of his own protests<\/p>\n
Snakes shooting funk continues<\/p>\n
The Taipans\u2019 much-discussed struggles with their shot seemed to have bled into their free throws, with the team shooting just 1\/5 from the stripe in the first term. <\/p>\n
That was compounded with some bad misses from beyond the arc, with a pair of Galloway\u2019s shots overshooting the rim entirely. <\/p>\n
Admiral Schofield\u2019s struggles from long range have drawn plenty of criticism, with the American import admitting he\u2019s heard the noise from fans and the media. <\/p>\n
After those struggles continued early, the veteran swingman nailed a pair of big triples to trim the lead back to single digits. <\/p>\n
But outside of Schofields production, the Taipans were once again poor from beyond the arc. <\/p>\n
PHOENIX DEMOLISH HAPLESS HAWKS<\/p>\n
On a record-breaking night for South East Melbourne Phoenix, coach Josh King and his assistants were quick to temper the excitement.<\/p>\n
The Phoenix had their biggest win in franchise history, battering defending champions Illawarra Hawks by 40 points in a 116-76 mauling on Saturday night at John Cain Arena, while equalling their highest score in a game.<\/p>\n
One of King\u2019s biggest challenges since arriving at Phoenix last season is the lack of consistency they have shown from game to game – going win, loss, win, loss over the first four games before the offensive explosion against the Hawks saw them improve to 3-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good to respond [to the loss to Adelaide on Thursday night], but I\u2019ve got to quote my assistant Adam Gibson, who played 900 million games in this league, just now in the coaches room, he said one sunny day doesn\u2019t make it summer,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
The Phoenix is still in exploratory mode with this team.<\/p>\n
In the space of three days, they showed their best in the win over Illawarra, and worst against Adelaide, leading King not overly enthused by the latest upswing in form.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to figure out who we want to be and who we are,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great that we had this game tonight and we played well and it\u2019s fun and it\u2019s a fun style to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to prove that we can stack multiple games together and get to a level where it\u2019s like that every night.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s to be determined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday night\u2019s win was a career night for shooting guard Angus Glover.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old was red hot off the bench with 26 points, including 8\/12 from three point land.<\/p>\n
Glover was smarting from what he described as a below par personal showing against Adelaide, in which he had little impact with 11 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty amped up honestly from this morning after laying an egg a bit on Thursday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were all ready, but it felt good out there, but you could see as a collective we were ready to go as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glover was locked in in the first half, draining seven three-point attempts.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the third or fourth [three pointer] dropped, that\u2019s when it starts to feel like anything can drop,\u201d Glover said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys found me, so credit to those guys, it was my night tonight, but it could be anyone\u2019s night the next night and that\u2019s the way we want to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the W that I care about and wanting to win championships and by doing that is building consistency and hopefully we can get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
-With Newswire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBL \u201cfreak\u201d Bryce Cotton has just dropped a remarkable 53 points to lead the Adelaide 36ers to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[135330,126738,2095,125404,67321,64,63,689,726,72,29637,9203,135329,135324,29629,135323,800,135328,94104,2105,24270,36734,135327,135331,97747,2041,2067,677,130923,701,135326,135332,96282,135322,85,12731,135321,2614,135325],"class_list":["post-222738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-absolute-game-changer","tag-adam-forde","tag-america","tag-american-import","tag-andrew-andrews","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-basketball","tag-cairns","tag-cairns-convention-centre","tag-catherine-healey","tag-derek-rucker","tag-dollar-figure","tag-emily-barker","tag-era-haul","tag-espn-inc","tag-extraordinary-performance","tag-flynn-cameron","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-home-side","tag-jack-mcveigh","tag-joel-peterson","tag-literal-way","tag-mason-jones","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-point-haul","tag-queensland","tag-ref-woes","tag-replacement-guard","tag-schofield","tag-snakes-shooting-funk","tag-sports","tag-thrilling-win","tag-two-possession-lead","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-veteran-swingman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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