A series for the ages
A failure to close led to one last showcase
02:18 remaining - 3rd quarter, Game 2 of the NBL Grand Final series, March 27th, 2026
A moment that loomed large as the Adelaide 36ers nursed a seven point lead midway through the fourth quarter of the NBL’s Grand Final decider, Bryce Cotton and Zylan Cheatham tearing through Sydney’s once vaunted defence, shredding the various traps, doubles and rotations that Brian Goorjian and his staff had concocted over the course of the season for this one particular moment.
Except it didn’t have to be this way.
The Kings, at that particular timestamp referenced above, were holding a 77-63 lead in Game 2 of the Grand Final series when Xavier Cooks missed a wide open dunk that would’ve pushed the lead to 16. Instead what followed was a capitulation from the Kings fitting of their old Violet Crumble nicknames as they allowed the 36ers off the mat to deliver one final haymaker in the form of a Bryce Cotton breakaway game winning layup around the pursuing Torrey Craig, who earlier in that very same game had sent a Cotton layup to the shadow realm.
The late stages of Game 2 echoed a problem that had followed the Kings for most of the season, although it hadn’t really mattered until now. Late in games, the offense slows down to isolation, prioritising killing time over generating a good shot, trusting talent over process. It’s my most hated trend in NBA basketball, how close games devolve into glorified 1v1 pickup basketball. Coaches get scared to be creative late, fearing turnovers by putting the ball in harm’s way, but I digress.
That meltdown, and the subsequent failure to close out Game 4 set up the all or nothing match-up on Easter Sunday, the NBL holding court one final time amidst the chaotic maelstrom that is the Sydney Royal Easter Show, winner takes all the showbags.
The NBL’s in house media empire had been stirred into a frenzy. After all, this series had developed into a promoter’s dream despite the early fears of an uncompetitive walkover when the Kings walloped the 36ers by an NBL Finals record 44 points in Game 1, a paddling so humiliating the Kings were able to trot out their bench warmers and towel wavers to the adulation of a raucous Qudos Bank Arena crowd.
“The biggest choke of all time” was the posited question by the talking heads, the Kings dominance in Game 1 trending more towards mirage than matter of fact considering the three games that followed.
Talk of the biggest choke ever felt, to be frank, disrespectful to both sides, but I actually thought it offended Adelaide more than the Kings. Adelaide finished the regular season in second place, a whole single victory behind Sydney, and led the ladder for the majority of the season before eventually being mowed down by a white hot Kings team like Tayshaun Prince on Reggie Miller in the 2004 NBA Eastern Conference Finals. Adelaide were a contender on merit, and while in a vacuum the Kings were the deeper team with the home court advantage, we’ve seen what Bryce Cotton has dragged over the finish line before.
The NBL has positioned itself as a premier international league over the past 7-8 seasons, but sometimes it feels like the league is growing at a rate faster than what local fans are comfortable with. Growth means eyeballs, and eyeballs means money, and money means stakes, and stakes means emotion, and if I’ve learned one thing over the last few seasons it’s that people can be really bad at being fans of a sport.
The amount of neutral caterwauling and hand wringing over the exchanges over the course of the series was, frankly, embarrassing. If you think the stuff between Kendric Davis and Cotton after Games 2 and 3 was a bit much, then I’d probably suggest you stay away from the NBA playoffs this year. The authenticity in the animosity within the heat of the battle is what made this series one of the best in the league’s history, culminating in the decider going to overtime off the back of an offensive rebound and a missed layup.
This is a rivalry that is burgeoning. Davis made no secret of his disappointment to lose out on the MVP award to Cotton, despite repeated interviews from both men stating the mutual respect when they compete. Was that all lip service? Maybe, and you know what? I do not care one iota. Players can pretend to like each other all they want. If they hate each other, let them hate each other. For people who grew up fans of Michael Jordan, they appear to be conveniently forgetting that he lowkey-but-actually-highkey fucking hated Isiah Thomas and the Pistons because they beat his ass (both figuratively with the 1989 and 1990 playoffs, and literally, with punches and stuff).
Anyway, stepping off my soapbox, this series deserved the ending it got, a Game 5 for all the marbles, where Adelaide threw the first few punches before the Kings responded to lead at the half. It was a contest packed with high emotion and tension in the stands, every Adelaide offensive rebound met with audible groans as the Kings faithful relived the script of Game 4, where the lack of defensive rebounding scuppered any chance at closing out the game. 19 more offensive rebounds to Adelaide in the decider, leading to big shots from the likes of Cotton and John Jenkins, the latter of whom drew particularly loud cries of panic when he caught the ball beyond the arc, and it felt like the Kings were on the precipice of shrinking into the night.
Until the challenger to the mantle stepped up.
A lot has been said and written about Kendric Davis over the last 12-18 months, from his tumultuous season and subsequent exit in Adelaide last season to the reports this week of his early season bust ups (however true they are I have no idea) with Xavier Cooks. Davis has been a polarising (to be polite) figure since he entered the league, not afraid to speak without thinking and bark at anyone standing in his way. When you say that you want to be the face of the league, you better back it up.
35 points and 14 assists in Game 5 feels like backing it up, and the Kings needed every single one of those points created because Cotton finally got off the leash as well. Cotton had been good in the series in ways atypical of his usual dominance, the scoring down but the assists up, thanks to the dogged defensive presence of Matthew Dellavedova, Jaylin Galloway, Torrey Craig and Makuach Maluach, but also thanks to the improved aggressiveness of Zylan Cheatham to make the Kings pay for the double teams on Cotton.
The Kings were happy to play 3v4 and make the other Sixers beat them, and in Games 1 and 2 (before the meltdown anyway), that tactic worked. The Sixers gradually adjusted to higher screens, and more 1-4 flat, let Cotton work, trusted Cheatham to make plays as a secondary creator, and it nearly got the job done. Cotton exploded in Game 5 with 35 points and 9 assists of his own, and the back and forth of shot making and playmaking between the two MVP contenders was as high level a duel between two opponents as I’ve seen in the NBL.
Once the game went to overtime it felt like the Sixers had fired their last bullet. The depth of the Kings became too much to overcome. Adelaide only played seven players in the decider, two of them fouling out in Flynn Cameron and Nick Rakocevic, the legs fading as the athleticism of the bevy of Kings wings swarmed the passing lanes and Makuach Maluach, who had been anonymous in the series, punctuated the comeback with a steal and slam to send the NBL record crowd into raptures. I’m somewhat surprised that Mike Wells couldn’t find spot minutes for Matt Kenyon or Isaac White (who was really good early in the series) in this one to, if nothing else, preserve the legs of guys like Jenkins and DJ Vasiljevic, or save Cameron some foul trouble, and a part of me wonders about Wells’ tenure in Adelaide as a whole beyond this game, but that’s a storyline for another day.
As it turns out, the missed Xavier Cooks dunk in Game 2 only served as kindling for an elongated series of madness and mayhem. A thousand what if scenarios will be played out in the coming days and weeks.
What if Cotton had gotten that layup to go at the end of regulation?
What if Cooks finishes the dunk in Game 2?
What if Mike Wells plays Isaac Humphries more early?
What if Nick Rakocevic doesn’t foul out in Game 5?
What if the Kings have Bul Kuol and Tyler Robertson instead of Torrey Craig?
The Kings raise their sixth championship banner. Xavier Cooks, Shaun Bruce and Jaylin Galloway join a rare group as 3x NBL champions. Tim Soares and Kouat Noi bank their second ring. Matthew Dellavedova finally gets his hands on the hardware after losing the last two finals series with Melbourne, to Tasmania and Illawarra respectively. Brian Goorjian cements his legacy as one of the greatest coaches in NBL history with his seventh NBL title, 17 years after his last one, in 2009 with the South Dragons.
A series of petulance. A series of fire. A series for the ages.
I’ll let Kendric Davis have the last word, for the time being…
“It’s my time now.”