Kings finish strongly to deny Bullets

The Sydney Kings had a  monstrous second half to defeat the Bullets 119-108 in the final game of the NBL Cup.  

Brisbane led by 11 points during the first half with Nathan Sobey and Vic Law combining for 33 points. In fact Sobey was on his way to a career-high night and the highest score by anyone this season with his 35 points, but it wouldn’t stop the Kings in the second half.

Ware came out on fire to start the second half with two quick threes and he went on to deliver 18 points after half-time Sydney putting together the best third quarter of the season with 38 points to end up setting up the 11-point victory having outscored Brisbane 71 points to 52 in the last two quarters.

Not only was it an impressive response for the Kings, but it denied the Bullets a chance to win the NBL Cup. 

Brisbane had no trouble at the offensive end either. They still scored 108 points with Sobey on fire for a career-best night with 35 points on 11/21 shooting and 6/11 from three-point land. He also had six assists and four rebounds.

Vic Law battled hard too for 23 points, nine rebounds and three assists while Matt Hodgson had 12 points, Jason Cadee 11 and Anthony Drmic 11. But it was the conceding 71 points in a half that left a sour taste in their mouths.

Bullets coach Andrej Lemanis just lamented an ability from his team to stop the Kings in the second half or fully take advantage when they were on top in the first half. 

"We couldn’t get stops and I think we had a total of five stops in the second half," Lemanis said.

"I'm surprised to see actually that we had offensive rebounds because I felt like every time they actually missed one they scrambled to come up with the ball, and they had 18 offensive rebounds on 38 misses. 

"That's almost 50 per cent so there are lots of effort area things there. I thought in the first half we did well to match their scoring and overcoming it to work our way into a nice little lead. We could have gone into half-time with a 12 or 14-point lead but that's the game. 

"Then in the second half they didn’t miss very much and you ask if that was us or them, but in most basketball games it's a function of both."

Brisbane finishes the NBL Cup with a 5-3 record to be 8-7 overall this season ahead of returning home on Saturday to host the New Zealand Breakers.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 9
NBL CUP WEEK 4

SYDNEY KINGS 119 (Ware 25, Martin 21, Moller 15)

BRISBANE BULLETS 108 (Sobey 35, Law 23, Hodgson 12) 

POINTS AWARDED – Sydney Kings 5, Brisbane Bullets 2

BOX SCORE