Cotton and Wildcats overcome Bolden heroics for Kings

Jonah Bolden set things up with seven three-pointers for the Sydney Kings, but Bryce Cotton soon took charge on his way to 41 points to lead the Perth Wildcats to a sixth straight NBL win, prevailing 114-105.

Bolden turned it on impressively in his best performance on his return to professional basketball this season, but the Wildcats had Cotton who produced 28 of his 41 points in the second half in a spectacular display.

On the back of that, the 'Cats overcame a 10-point first half deficit to outscore the Kings 64 points to 48 in the second to make it six consecutive victories to improve to 8-5.

"It was a great win against the defending champs on our home court," Perth coach John Rillie said.

"We played with a good pace about ourselves tonight and I was disappointed with the amount of threes (19) we gave up, but we hung in the fourth quarter and got the stops when we needed to.

"When you also have a great performance from a superstar it makes it easier, but we had many performances in the fourth quarter to help us get over the line."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">&quot;MVP&quot; chants for Bryce Cotton in RAC Arena ? <a href="https://t.co/t48jALw0yD">pic.twitter.com/t48jALw0yD</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1730568956409516516?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 1, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Bolden had been solid playing a role for the Kings so far this season on his return after a three-year absence from the sport by rebounding, defending, setting screens and being a terrific teammate.

But on Friday night at RAC Arena, he turned into an offensive weapon showing why his shooting touch for a big man led to him playing 61 games in the NBA.

Bolden already had 19 points with five three-pointers to his name by half-time with the Kings leading 57-50.

While he missed his first three-point attempt in the third quarter, he soon made his sixth and showed his all-round abilities with a dunk and then block on Perth Next Star Alex Sarr.

However, Cotton scored 16 points alone in the third quarter with scores all square by three quarter-time after Perth put up 33 points.

The triple championship winner added another 12 points in the fourth quarter with Perth having too much for the sixth straight win.

On top of Cotton's 41 points which including 14-of-16 shooting at the foul line and seven assists, Keanu Pinder had 18 points, nine rebounds and five assists, Sarr 15 points and five boards, and captain and 456-game veteran Jesse Wagstaff 14 points.

It's consecutive losses for the Kings who slip to 7-5 despite the 28 points on 7-of-8 three-point shooting from Bolden. Jaylen Adams added 21 points and eight assists, DJ Hogg 20 points, six rebounds, four assists and two blocks, and Denzel Valentine 13 points and nine boards.

Kings coach Mahmoud Abdelfattah lamented his team conceding 14 offensive rebounds, giving up 18 points off turnovers and missing 14 free-throw attempts.

"We just had a few mental lapses," he said.

"I felt we obviously made some big mistakes to give them some easy buckets and that's the difference in the game.

"You've always got to make free-throws, that and taking care of the ball and the rebounding battle are the three biggest keys to the game, and they won those.

"We just have to take care of the ball better, make free-throws and rebound. You can't let them win all of the battles."

HUNGRY JACKS NBL ROUND 9

PERTH WILDCATS 114 (Cotton 41, Pinder 18, Sarr 15)

SYDNEY KINGS 105 (Bolden 28, Adams 21, Hogg 20)

BOX SCORE