Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nIn a tight encounter in front of a packed-out John Cain Arena, the Sixers held on to win in the end after three consecutive misses from United in the final 23 seconds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think it was a great way to start the season,\u201d Cotton said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great test playing a team like United and to start the season on the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great to win under those circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antony was the first to miss on his two attempt, before Chris Goulding and Fabijan Krslovic both fell short on their goes at triples to win the game.<\/p>\n
Lively Sixers forward Zylan Cheatham made a big lay up and free throw to lift his side to a five-point lead earlier with 2:44 remaining.<\/p>\n
The thrilling encounter looked well and truly in the Sixers favour when they shot out to a game-high eight-point lead in the third term. But then Antony got his side back in it with a 13-point third term.<\/p>\n
The former Orlando Magic and Milwaukee Buck then put his side ahead by a point midway through the fourth after nailing one of his three triples.<\/p>\n
Anthony proceeded to go to the sideline to share some words with NBL expert Derek Rucker after the huge bucket.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said \u2018hey, I should be No. 1 on your top 15 D-Ruck, you see what I\u2019m doing here, 25 points on debut and I still got five minutes to go,\u2019\u201d Australian basketball legend Andrew Gaze said on commentary.<\/p>\n
Antony nailed another triple late to trim the margin to two points with 50 seconds left, but his side, under new coach Jacob Chance, weren\u2019t able to fire the final blow.<\/p>\n
United\u2019s loss came despite five-time Olympian Ingles\u2019 superb outing in his return game, registering seven assists and 12 points, including 2\/2 from three.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old also had five boards.<\/p>\n
Ingles nailed his first triple attempt midway in the second quarter after checking into the game with 3:42 to go in the opening quarter.<\/p>\n
He made a superb pass to Josh Oduro with 0.8 seconds left on the clock in the first half to cut his side\u2019s deficit to a point at half time.<\/p>\n
The Utah Jazz all-time three-points leader nailed his second triple early in the fourth term to help push his side forward.<\/p>\n
But it was new Sixers coach Trevor Gleeson who came up victorious in the battle of the new coaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love our passion,\u201d he said post game.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously they were a tight unit last year when I was watching from afar.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then we bring Jacob (Rigoni) in as a replacement player as we had a couple of players down, and that\u2019s where you find out about the spirit of the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have some guys out, do you whinge and complain and say \u2018poor me\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur guys didn\u2019t, they just went out and played, so very proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole Anthony of United and Bryce Cotton of the 36ers shake hands. (Photo by Daniel Pockett\/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
But the win came at a cost with Flynn Cameron going down with an ankle injury, adding to an already lengthy injury list with Isaac Humphries and Josh Jenkins on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just saw he rolled the ankle, came down on it,\u201d Gleeson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFingers crossed (for him).\u201d<\/p>\n
United also copped a blow with big Sam Waardenburg going down and not returning, but coach Chance revealed post-game it was \u201cjust cramp\u201d after his heavy landing in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
New United coach Jacob Chance said an improved performance defensively could have made a difference to the result.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team is so talented, we\u2019ll find ways to score the ball,\u201d Chance said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to them on day one when I got here, like we\u2019ll go as far as our defence takes us.<\/p>\n
\u201c34 in the paint is a good number for us, but I felt like there was 10 that we could have done a better job on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we do that, that would have given us a much better chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
United take on South East Melbourne next and the Sixers travel to face Perth Wildcats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A stunning 30-point debut from Melbourne United star recruit Cole Anthony was not enough to get his side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-898386","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\/898386","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=898386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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