1986: “When it counts” - the business end of the season

As the Adelaide 36ers prepare to celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the club’s inaugural championship in 1986, we’ve created a series of articles that tell the story of one of the most incredible seasons in NBL history.
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In 1986, the Adelaide 36ers felt invincible.

They flew through the regular season, going 24-2 and the losses only came to the West Sydney Westars and Coburg Giants in late buzzer beaters.

The group finished five wins clear at the top of the ladder and had a home record of 13-0.

Of the club’s 27 total victories that year, 17 were by at least 20 points, and they won 12 in-a-row leading into the finals.

It is fair to say the Adelaide 36ers of that season truly earned the nickname “the Invincibles”.

But ask any one of the players of that era, and having felt similar a season earlier only to lose in the Grand Final to Brisbane, the real test would come in finals.

"Once you get the finals, it's a whole new season,” remembers Mike McKay, who played all 30 games in 1986 and averaged 13.6 points per game.

“You've got to make sure that you don't change anything. You continue the way that you've been working, you continue the way that you train and so forth.

“It was just the self-belief that we had such a great regular season that we just needed to make sure that we carried it through into the finals.”

Teammate Al Green, who was a little older and more experienced than McKay at that point remembers it well.

He describes the side as having been on a mission following the heartbreak of 1985, knowing the incredible season would have counted for nothing had the side not come home with the club’s first NBL Championship.

“At the end of the day, if we didn't get the job done at the end of the day, it was all a failure,” he says 40 years on.

“It didn't matter if you lost two games by one point or two points. It would have been an unfinished job, if we didn't bring it home.”

Having qualified first, the Sixers enjoyed a rest during the first week of the playoffs watching the fifth placed Illawarra Hawks beat the fourth ranked Westars in an Elimination Final.

A 116-92 win over the Hawks at Apollo Stadium followed with Darryl Pearce top scoring with 28 points and having seven assists while Mark Davis pulled down 14 rebounds.

Meanwhile the Brisbane Bullets had swept past the Sydney Supersonics in the Eliminator before travelling to Canberra to beat the Cannons 120-100 in their Semi to set up a rematch of the 1985 Grand Final.

Only this time, it would be a three-game series instead of a one-off decider.

McKay, who had celebrated his 21st birthday during the best of three Championship series in 1986, said it felt like everything was being set up for a movie script.

“It would have been a Hollywood blockbuster, wouldn't it?” McKay says.

“I think it was just meant to be. Two of the best teams going at it for the last two years in a row.

“They were the far better team on the night in 85 and we had to come back and redeem ourselves, I suppose, in ‘86.”

Mark Davis would go on to be named the Grand Final MVP in 1986 after a blistering first season with the 36ers in 1985.

He did not want to play anyone else when it came to the championship series.

“We respected Brisbane as a competitor, as a competitive group,” he explains.

“We knew they had Leap’n Leroy (Loggins), and all those types, and they had a good chemistry group over there. They had a great coach.

“At the end of the day, if you’re playing sports, you have a better satisfaction when you're playing against the best.

“From a group's point of view, and I know for myself personally, I wouldn't have wanted to play anybody else.

“I'm sure the group felt like, ‘you have taken something from us that we knew we should have had’. So, there was no better person or team to meet again.”

Game 1 was in Brisbane on October 11, 1986.

It was a seesawing game which turned with Loggins being fouled out late. The game finished at 111-111 at the end of regular time and on the back of Davis’ 38 points, five assists and 23 rebounds, the Sixers prevailed.

“After getting that win, we were confident coming back home,” McKay remembers. “Maybe a little bit too confident.”

“Brisbane came out and did their homework and took us out of our game. We weren't playing our natural game on in game two. And it showed.”

With the champagne on ice ready for the Sixers to celebrate, things turned sour in the return game on October 17.

The Sixers were confident. Why shouldn’t they be. They’d just won all 14 home games that season to make it more than 20 unbeaten at Apollo Stadium dating back 16 months.

Davis hurt his elbow early in the game and it clearly impacted the group. Brisbane stunned the home crowd to win 104-83.

“They responded with their best shot,” Davis said.

“That's what competitors do, right?

“At the end of the day, that was good for us to feel that, because now we knew we had to go to another level.

“And at that next level, I didn't think Brisbane could come to.”

But at the time it did not feel like there was a positivity.

Coach Ken Cole, sensing some nerves and disappointment in the group, booked his side into a hotel on Anzac Highway to secrete the group away and ensure they could focus on responding two days later.

“After the game, we had that same feeling as we did in ‘85 and it was the disappointment that you should have wrapped it up in two,” McKay explained.

“We had one more game to go so after game two, Ken booked us all into a hotel.

“We all stayed as a group and just talked about what needed to be done for that Sunday afternoon.”

Green averaged 19.4 points in his 30 games for the 36ers that season.

He was hellbent on making up for the 1985 defeat to the Bullets and the loss in Game 2 hit him hard.

“I couldn't sleep. I could not sleep,” he explained.

“We had the champagne on ice. Ready to party alright. (We were) at home. It was designed for a movie, right? A Hollywood movie. But it was all deflated.”

Davis was more positive.

He was sure his side would respond, and it did.

“We established a different identity throughout the whole course of the season,” he said.

“That (Game 2) was not us and we recognised that very quickly that that wasn't us.

“And so, going in to play the third game, we were like, ‘It's time for us to show up’.

“And we did.”

The Sixers came back with a bang, building a 16 point lead in the first half before the Bullets responded and found themselves in front.

With Loggins fouling out again for the Brisbane side, the Sixers pulled away to win 113-91 to claim the club’s first NBL Championship.

“It was like, here we go now, sweet revenge,” Green smiles.

“And the thing with it, it was beautiful beating them because they beat us the year before.

“The sad thing is that if you become an underdog and you win, it's like, ‘oh, right, right’. But when you become that dog that's supposed to win, and you don't win, now when you do, when you say, ‘Hey, I deserve to win because I was supposed to win”. And that was the pressure.

“We were supposed to win that year. And we did.”

It would be Ken Cole’s last game as the coach of the Adelaide 36ers after a tumultuous year in which he was fired then re-instated.

And it while there were mixed emotions around his departure, the side knew it had achieved something special for the club and the state – and the players certainly celebrated!

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In the sixth and final part of our 1986 Championship series recount, we’ll remember the unprecedented celebrations.

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