Kings bounce back with big win over Melbourne

Having their backs against the wall appears to bring out the best in the Sydney Kings with a powerful 98-86 home victory against the NBL-leading Melbourne United.

It was an inspired Sydney outfit despite the absence of forwards DJ Hogg and Jaylin Galloway who were on a mission from the start, put up 58 points in the first half to lead by as much as 15 and score the critical 12-point win.

Kings coach Mahmoud Abdelfattah was rightfully a proud man afterwards of his playing group.

"Credit to the guys, they battled and obviously everyone knows the ups and downs we've been through," he said.

"They did a hell of a job, every single person that stepped on the floor made great plays and it just goes back to the defensive end.

"We kept them to 43 points each half which was a phenomenal job but the guys wanted to do it, they stuck together.

"I'm just proud of them and happy for them."

Two weeks ago the Kings suffered a poor road loss to the then last-placed Adelaide 36ers on a Thursday night.

Back home on Sunday, they hit back to hammer the New Zealand Breakers by 29 points and it was a similar scenario this time around at Qudos Bank Arena.

Sydney hosted Melbourne fresh off a shock loss to the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Thursday who were missing five key players.

That had the pressure back on Sydney to hold on to a spot in the top six and it was a significant challenge against the league-leading United back to full strength and playing their last of seven consecutive road games in January.

The signs weren’t great for Sydney with Melbourne leading by 26-22 at quarter-time after a Shea Ili (10 points) four-point play, but the home team got rolling in the second quarter.

The Kings put up 36 points to light up the 12,921 crowd to lead 58-43 at the half with former NBA trio Adams (16 points), Jonah Bolden (10 points, seven rebounds) and Denzel Valentine (15 points, nine assists) combining for 32 points on 12-of-20 shooting.

It didn’t take long for United to close to within three points during the third quarter, but Makuach Maluach (18 points, 7-of-11 shooting) provided the steadying spark for Sydney with nine points just before three quarter-time.

Melbourne kept coming, but Sydney saw them off to improve to fourth position with a 12-13 record.

Jordan Hunter also had 12 points and nine rebounds, captain Shaun Bruce 12 points and five assists, and Angus Glover 10 points after making the start.

Chris Goulding had a rough shooting night for Melbourne with 2-of-11 from deep for eight points while as a team they went 6-of-30 from the land of plenty.

Luke Travers top-scored with 15 points to go with 10 rebounds, five blocks and three assists.

Melbourne coach Dean Vickerman felt it was the third quarter that cost his top-of-the-table team.

"I can't get my mind off the second quarter at the moment and I called a timeout early, and really felt like I needed one in the last few minutes," he said.

"We made massive improvements in the third to get ourselves back in the game and got back to three on Tanner's (Krebs) three ball, and there was a lot of things that we did to look aside from shooting the three ball like we're capable of."

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 17

SYDNEY KINGS 98 (Maluach 18, Adams 16, Valentine 15)

MELBOURNE UNITED 86 (Travers 15, Lual-Acuil Jr 10, Hukporti 10, Dellavedova 10, Ili 10)

BOX SCORE