{"id":393845,"date":"2026-01-05T20:30:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393845\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:30:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T20:30:06","slug":"phoenix-edge-title-rivals-kings-in-nbl-shootout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/393845\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix edge title rivals Kings in NBL shootout"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nathan Sobey top-scored for South East Melbourne as they outlasted Sydney in a 124-117 classic as the NBL<\/a>‘s two best defensive teams produced the highest-scoring game of the season.<\/p>\n

There were 34 lead changes in the finals-like contest at Qudos Bank Arena on Monday night, with Sobey (26 points) the linchpin as the Phoenix (15-7) laid down a marker against their title rivals.<\/p>\n

Jordan Hunter (23 points), Angus Glover (18), Owen Foxwell and DJ Mitchell (both 16) also fired for the visitors, while John Brown was outstanding defensively.<\/p>\n

Sydney (13-9) fell short despite 30 points from Kendric Davis, who fouled out with 1:39 left, and suffered a huge blow when they lost former MVP Xavier Cooks to an ankle injury before half-time.<\/p>\n

Matthew Dellavedova (20 points, five assists) fought hard and Makuach Maluach, who was in the starting line-up beacuse of Bul Kuol’s knee injury, threw down two huge dunks in his 15 points.<\/p>\n

SEM dominated the offensive boards (20-8) and shot the ball at 50 per cent from the field, including 17-of-40 triples.<\/p>\n

The result ended the Kings’ five-game winning streak at home, while the Phoenix have now won six of their past eight since an overtime loss to Illawarra on December 4.<\/p>\n

Sydney held a narrow 35-31 lead after a free-scoring first quarter that set the tone for a shootout, but lost Cooks to a rolled left ankle in the opening seconds of the second period.<\/p>\n

Brown and Tim Soares tangled off the ball, leading to a brief scuffle between the teams and a behaviour warning for both, then tension boiled over when Sydney coach Brian Goorjian received a tech foul.<\/p>\n

The Kings’ mentor took exception to SEM having an extra man on the floor at the time of an in-bounds pass, with Sobey still walking off as the ball came back into play.<\/p>\n

Both sides had work to do defensively at halftime, with Sydney holding a 60-59 advantage on the back of Davis’s 20 points on 8-of-9 shooting.<\/p>\n

Sobey caught fire in the third, leading the Phoenix to a double-figure lead before they turned for home with a 95-92 advantage.<\/p>\n

Davis was scoreless in the third period until two late threes kept the Kings in the contest.<\/p>\n

It was anyone’s game in the final period until a big plus-one bucket from Sobey, Hunter’s drive to the rack, and Glover’s two free-throws gave the Phoenix a seven-point buffer with 17 seconds left to play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Sobey top-scored for South East Melbourne as they outlasted Sydney in a 124-117 classic as the NBL‘s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-393845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393845","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=393845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}