Bruton hails resilience in comeback success

Adelaide 36ers head coach was thrilled his die found a way to get a resilient win in their 78-75 success against Cairns Taipans on Brett Maher Court at the Entertainment Centre on Friday night.

After trailing 27-12 after the first quarter, the Taipans extended their lead to 19 points midway through the second quarter, before the 36ers started their phenomenal comeback.

“As a team that is competing for something special, you got to find ways to get these games,” Bruton said.

“I thought in the first half turning the ball over against a team that lives off turnovers, having seven in that first quarter, set the tone, lead to transition buckets for them and a nice, comfortable lead.

“As I reminded the boys at half time, there is two halves and there needed to be an urgency.”

That urgency came in the third quarter, but a Tahjere McCall three-pointer on the buzzer of three quarter time gave the Snakes an eight-point lead with 10 minutes to play.

Bruton said he his still looking for the right rotations within his squad, who are still a work in progress.

“I’m still trying to find that balance of who comes in and what do they bring to help this group move forward and shift the needle for us,” Bruton said.

“H (Harris) was amazing, they all had big plays, from AC (Cleveland) to RoBo (Franks) to Sunday (Dech) and Macca (McCarron), even DJ (Johnson), everyone contributed.

“While we are missing a few players, I thought we were able to step up for each other and have each other’s back and compete at an elite level.”