Wells: Adelaide looked "out of sync"

Sitting at 14-4 in Round 13 of the Hungry Jack's NBL25 season, few teams have caused issues for the Adelaide 36ers to date.

One side that has though is the Sydney Kings, who have won both their meetings with Mike Wells' side during the 2025-26 campaign, including Wednesday night's Ignite Cup clash in Canberra.

Although Sydney needed overtime to secure the victory, 36ers coach Wells concedes the Kings are a tough team to deal with.

"They're probably the one team that came to Adelaide and beat us [on our home court]," Wells said in the post-game press conference.

"[Then tonight] we were trying to learn, change and win in real time. We're still figuring out the offensive pieces and how it all works.

"[Especially in a game like] today where the opportunities were right there, but we were just a little bit out of sync in that second half.

"You have to give them credit for their length, their athleticism and their pressure, to try to change the pace of the game.

"I would love for us to settle and be able to play downhill a little bit more, but it didn't happen."

Wells felt his side "weren't as clean" offensively as they'd been in previous weeks, but still believes there are plenty of positives to take from their first defeat in eight matches.

"Every day is a learning day and I think that there's a ton of real positives [to come from tonight]," he said.

"One in particular was our small ball lineup, due to Isaac [Humphries] being in foul trouble and not playing with Nick [Rakocevic].

"It's definitely something I like to use in spurts [moving forward], especially with the versatility of players like Troy Brown Jr and Flynn Cameron.

"By them playing up, it creates more opportunity for DJ [Vasiljevic], Isaac [White] and Matt Kenyon, while making us more versatile on defence and giving us more spacing on the offensive end."

Adelaide, which still sit first on the ladder, now travels to Wollongong to face reigning champions Illawarra on Saturday from 5.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.