Sixers fire back to winning on the back of captain Mitch

The Adelaide 36ers had a point to prove on a number of fronts on Friday night back at Adelaide Entertainment Centre and they did exactly that with captain Mitch McCarron leading the charge in the 83-57 win over the Cairns Taipans.

The Sixers have been frustrated in recent weeks and had plenty of hurdles thrown in during a five-game losing run that almost reached breaking point last Saturday night with a loss to the New Zealand Breakers at the old Adelaide 36ers Arena.

While the 36ers did beat the Taipans a month ago also at the Entertainment Centre, there were some long memories back to the 26-point loss in Cairns back in December that the Sixers still wanted to make amends for.

And they did that by leading most of the night and then blowing the game wide open in the fourth quarter with an 18-0 run on the way to the fitting 26-point victory.

Captain Mitch McCarron took Adelaide's loss to heart last Saturday against the New Zealand Breakers even helping to clean up the bleachers post-match, and he took out that frustration on the floor this Friday night.

He scored 11 points in the first quarter alone on his way to 21 for the game to go with 10 rebounds, three assists and three steals on shooting 4/7 from three-point territory.

McCarron said it had been a challenging season personally and was glad to break the shackles with the standout game.

"I have had some time, obviously the last game was last week, to think about how I have been playing," he said.

"As a group we have been frustrated, the coaching staff have been frustrated. It has been a reflection week and it sure feels good to get back to the winners table."

There were plenty more impressive contributors for the Sixers including Cam Bairstow with 12 points and six rebounds, and Tad Dufelmeier 10 points and five boards.

It didn’t stop there with Daniel Johnson finishing with nine points and four rebounds, Sunday Dech nine points, three boards, three steals and two assists, Dusty Hannahs eight points, and Mojave King six points, three rebounds and two blocks.

Hyrum Harris again gave good energy for four points and two assists with Kai Sotto contributing two points, eight rebounds and two blocks, and Nick Marshall two points.

Adelaide coach CJ Bruton was happy to have snapped the losing streak and said it was important to finish the season on a high.

"Every game counts. At the end of the day we are in a situation where we have games to play and we have to show value to the people that put you here," he said.

"Every game we need to have the right mentality and understanding of where we are, what we have to do and delivering that in spades."

Tad Dufelmeier opened the scoring against his former team and then Sunday Dech gave the 36ers a 4-0 edge. Another former Taipan Mitch McCarron drained a three and it was 7-2, but the Taipans responded well from an Adam Forde timeout.

Tahjere McCall and Bul Kuol scored out of it for Cairns and that led to a furious standing CJ Bruton timeout for Adelaide. It worked because McCarron came out of it to knock down two more three balls in succession.

He would end up with 11 points for the quarter and by the end of one it was Adelaide holding a 20-16 advantage.

The Taipans opened the second period well thanks to Pinder taking it to the rack and then Kuol hitting his second triple of the game, and suddenly the visitors had the lead. Pinder helped blow that out to a five-point lead but then the 36ers got hot.

It started with last season's Next Star in Cairns Mojave King lighting up for back-to-back three balls as part of a 9-0 run. Adelaide then went on another run 11 straight points beginning with a triple from Daniel Johnson for his first bucket of the game.

That had Adelaide up 11 but Pinder was feeling it on his old home floor and went on an individual run of seven straight points to help the Taipans only trail by five at half-time largely through better effort on the boards for 26 rebounds to Adelaide's 17 including 11 at the offensive end to four.

Three-pointers to Cam Bairstow and McCarron to open the second half saw the Sixers pull out to a nine-point lead again but the Taipans reacted well firstly by dumping it inside to Nate Jawai, and then with McCall's energy for eight of the game's next 10 points.

However, again the 36ers pulled away with the last nine points of the quarter including five of them to captain McCarron to be up 61-51 by three quarter-time.

It didn’t take long into the fourth quarter for the 36ers to put the game to bed either. A four-point play from Dech pushed the lead out to 14 and all up the Sixers blew it wide apart with 18 straight points to turn a 10-point advantage into a lead of 28.

Cairns scored the last bucket of the game through development player Brayden Inger for his first NBL points but the Adelaide crowd went home happy with their team's 26-point win.

The 36ers now have a short turnaround to take on the ladder leading Melbourne United at John Cain Arena on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 16

ADELAIDE 36ERS 83 (McCarron 21, Bairstow 12, Dufelmeier 10)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 57 (Pinder 15, McCall 14, Kuol 12) 

BOX SCORE