Kings send warning signal with big win in Cairns

It was a win to savour for the Sydney Kings as they survived 99-91 against the Taipans in Cairns on Saturday but the addition of gun recruit Angus Glover to the walking wounded brigade is a concern for last year's Grand Finalists.

Having spent the week in Cairns after losing by a point to the Taipans last Saturday night at the Pop-Up Arena, Sydney was still without Daniel Kickert and Xavier Cooks with Didi Louzada joining them in not suiting up.

They then lost Glover to a suspected knee injury in the second term. The young guard has already had three knee reconstructions and will require scans to determine the extent of his latest setback.

The Kings led by as many as 14 points but they were always going to run the risk of being outrun and outgunned because of their lack of fit troops. 

The Taipans indeed came at them again and again, including trailing by just two in the final two minutes. But the Kings had the composure to hold their nerve and secure their first win of #NBL21.

Import Jarell Martin put up big minutes and big numbers on his way to 22 points, 11 rebounds and three assists.

Point guard Casper Ware was happy to keep his shot holstered in the first after going 6/21 last week but fired in the second half for 22 points including 4/7 from deep having gone 2/32 in his past four games.

The evergreen Brad Newley (17 points, five rebounds) helped lay the platform for the win as well while rookie DJ Vasiljevic scored another 13 points in his first start.

After being the first rookie coach to ever lose his first game by one point last week, Adam Forde paid credit to the spirit within the Kings.

"Being on the road as long as we have, we have been wearing that as a badge of honour. It's tough being away from your family and having the boys be together 24/7, it can either go really, really bad or really, really good depending on how the group manages it," he said.

"It's an exciting thing, me being in my first year as head coach we have a whole lot of guys who want to be coached, who want to play hard for each other and are willing to step aside and let someone have their moment."

Forde said the club would wait for the scans to determine the extent of his injury.

"We'll assess it, it is unfortunate. We will wait for the assessment and get the inevitable opinion."

Cam Oliver played with plenty of emotion on his way to 27 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks for the Taipans and Scott Machado (14), Kouat Noi (13) and Mojave King (12) all contributed but they lacked the venom when it really counted.

With NBL teams reduced from three import spots to two in #NBL21, Cairns was forced to make the tough choice to sign Oliver and Machado at the expense of 2020 Defensive Player of the Year DJ Newbill.

He was also their leading scorer and coach Mike Kelly admitted that defence was an issue now.

"(I put it down to) defence and rebounding, that and a Kings team that was in attack mode and made shots," he said.

"If we could stop that penetration and rebound the ball, I think we would have been in a much better position.

"It was a problem tonight ... in two games we haven't defended the way we need to defeat a championship level team so yeah, it is an issue. It is an issue until we fix it."

There was a little bit of feeling between the two clubs who met just one week ago at the same venue. Cairns drew early blood but the injection of veteran Newley (nine points for the quarter) put the Kings up by four.

Oliver made a statement dunk in response but there were problems on the defensive end for the Taipans who had to fight for their points while the Kings were seemingly able to score at will.

Next Star King stepped up for the Snakes, though, with eight points of his own including a late long bomb that meant his side only trailed by a single point at quarter-time.

Newley was close to unstoppable as the Kings surged their way to a game-high seven-point lead before Oliver attempted to stop the rot with a jam followed up by a big play on the defensive end. 

Cairns were being outmuscled and outhustled by the Kings and tensions flared under the hoop with some pushing and shoving from both sides.

Machado decided to take the game by the scruff of the neck with a triple and some influential plays to bring his side back to within four points but Martin put an end to their surge as the Kings took a 46-37 lead into half-time with a freakish three-point from Shaun Bruce the icing on the cake. 

There was a fear that Sydney could run out of legs with their rotations decimated, but Martin channelled his inner terminator as he refused to stop charging his way to the rack. 

Ware made up for lost time after only shooting twice in the first half, burying three triples that might as well have been daggers to Cairns.

It took a King to challenge the Kings as Mojave had some quality touches as Cairns erased a 14-point deficit to be behind by just one late at three quarter-time off the back of a 15-2 run. Suddenly fatigue was a factor and the Taipans were feasting on the Kings' misery.

But the experienced heads in the Kings roster helped weather the storm with a late Vasiljevic triple giving them the buffer they needed to hold off the Cairns fightback.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 2

CAIRNS TAIPANS 91 (Oliver 27, Machado 14, Noi 13)

SYDNEY KINGS 99 (Martin 22, Ware 22, Newley 17) 

BOX SCORE