{"id":897712,"date":"2026-09-19T12:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T12:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/897712\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T12:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T12:10:13","slug":"36ers-win-heart-stopper-over-united-as-nba-season-opens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/897712\/","title":{"rendered":"36ers win heart-stopper over United as NBA season opens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bryce Cotton finished with 29 points in the 36ers’ nail-biting win over Melbourne United. (James Ross\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Fabijan Krslovic missed a three-pointer on the full-time buzzer, allowing the Adelaide 36ers to launch the new NBL season by escaping with a pulsating 97-95 victory over Melbourne United at John Cain Arena.<\/p>\n

Melbourne’s import sensation Cole Anthony, who scored 30 points in 22 minutes in a stunning debut on Saturday night, buried a massive three inside the last minute to trim the Sixers’ lead to two points, before United missed three late attempts, through Anthony himself, captain Chris Goulding and Krslovic.<\/p>\n

Six-time league MVP Bryce Cotton paired 29 points with seven assists for Adelaide, while Zylan Cheatham added 18 points.<\/p>\n

\"Cole
\n Cole Anthony landed 30 points in 22 minutes in a stunning debut for United. (James Ross\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Melbourne’s other new American, Josh Oduro, scored 14 points, while Boomers legend Joe Ingles, playing his first NBL game since 2009 – a staggering 6399 days ago – posted 12 points and seven assists.<\/p>\n

The 36ers’ tense win came at a cost, though, with starting guard Flynn Cameron rolling his right ankle early in the second half, joining centre Isaac Humphries (knee), off-season recruit Bul Kuol (knee) and import John Jenkins (back) on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

The season opener got off to an exciting start when Cameron lobbed a no-look pass for an athletic Cheatham alley-oop dunk, 11 seconds in.<\/p>\n

Adelaide led 25-23 at quarter-time and still narrowly held sway 49-48 at halftime, despite Ingles getting heavily involved in the second term.<\/p>\n

\"Joe
\n Joe Ingles made his presence felt with 12 points and seven assists for Melbourne United. (James Ross\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

The former NBA veteran finished smartly in the paint, dished crisp passes and got in his opponents’ face with his famed emotion.<\/p>\n

Cotton had already scored 16 points by halftime and unsung Jacob Rigoni had eight as Adelaide edged ahead 49-48 at the main interval.<\/p>\n

The Sixers moved ahead 63-55 on Cotton’s third three-pointer, before Anthony took over.<\/p>\n

After surprisingly starting on the bench, Anthony showed why he was a first-round NBA draft pick in 2020, pouring in Melbourne’s next 13 points to help trim Adelaide’s advantage to 75-70 at three-quarter time.<\/p>\n

Superstars Anthony and Cotton traded big buckets down the stretch, but the 36ers held on, despite Cameron’s absence and Nick Rakocevic fouling out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

License this article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bryce Cotton finished with 29 points in the 36ers’ nail-biting win over Melbourne United. (James Ross\/AAP PHOTOS) Fabijan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[4764,4765,64,63,4766,1348,3355,3359,590,44,3356,3354,3357,85,3358,1346],"class_list":["post-897712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-aap","tag-aapnews","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-daily-news","tag-global-news","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-news-app","tag-news-headlines","tag-news-today","tag-sports","tag-today-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897712","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=897712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}