"No love": Kings star reignites feud before rematch

Sunday isn’t just another game for Kendric Davis and the Sydney Kings.

The last time they faced Adelaide, Davis poured in 35 points and 14 assists in an overtime Game 5 to deliver Sydney the championship, then claimed Championship Series MVP honours with a parting shot aimed, it seemed, squarely at six-time MVP Bryce Cotton: “It’s my time now.”

Now the rivals meet again. The Kings are 3-0, the 36ers are 2-4 and searching for answers, and if ever a regular-season game was going to carry more weight than a single win, this is it.

“There’s no love between me and Bryce. There’s no love with me and Adelaide and there’s no love from them for us. We took their championship,” Davis said.

“You can’t shy away from it. It’s out there already.

“They struggling right now. So they going to come in desperate, and then it’s against us, so they going to come even more desperate. It’s no love lost between us two. It’s no secret.”

Cotton has pipped Davis in each of the past two MVP counts, with the pair widely regarded as the two best players in the League by some distance.

But Davis had the last laugh in the Championship Series, claiming his first NBL title and the prestigious Larry Sengstock Trophy.

In April, the 27-year-old described the rivalry with Cotton as “all love”, while admitting he wanted to “make him feel me”. Six months on, the tone has hardened, and his hunger hasn’t faded.

“We did something last year, but that’s past us. We got new guys who didn’t win a championship. So they’re hungry, and we’ve got to be hungry,” Davis said.

“I’ve got a son to feed, a family to feed, a city that’s behind us. Nobody cares about last year. We want greatness. That’s what make you great, man, when you can repeat it and keep repeating dominance.”

The Kings have shown no sign of a championship hangover through their perfect start, and Davis says that comes down to a mindset that never switches off.

“That’s where the greatness come in at. You don’t get tired of being great, for me,” he said.

Yet for all the heat surrounding Sunday, he’s adamant one result won’t define Sydney’s season.

“We’re approaching it game by game, because whoever win this game don’t mean nothing in the long run,” he said.

“We just want to protect our home floor no matter who we play. It just so happen we’re playing Adelaide Sunday. I know it’s the me and Bryce thing that’s huge for the NBL, but we’re just embracing one game at a time.”

Davis has made a blistering start to his title defence, averaging 27 points, 6.3 assists and 5.7 rebounds through three games, including a season-high 31 points against Illawarra. But don’t expect him to buy into the hype just yet.

“I don’t really consider myself dominant right now. I’ve just had three good games,” he said.

“We’ve got 33 more to go, and that’s a long amount of games to go. So, once we get more games and I get more rhythm, I get even better.”

Sydney hosts Adelaide on Sunday, live on ESPN from 3pm AEDT.