Wells: Calmness, Cameron, the keys to Kings win

Adelaide 36ers Head Coach Mike Wells has praised the composure of his side and lauded New Zealand international Flynn Cameron’s performance in Friday night’s come-from-behind victory over Sydney.

The Sixers came back from an 11-point deficit twice to overrun the Kings in front of a record 10,044 crowd at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

Cameron hit a career-high 25 points and had four assists as the top of the table Sixers won 85-79 to make it four wins on the trot.

While it was a cagey first half by his side, Wells was proud of the response after half time, saying Cameron played his best career game “so far” in what was a playoff-like atmosphere.

“I thought the energy from the crowd, I thought the energy from the teams (felt like it),” Wels said after the game.

“I thought you saw two teams that really wanted to compete and we need these type of situations.

“Every possession mattered, every rebound mattered. All those big shots in the fourth.

“Flynn played a whole bunch of minutes. He was out there a whole bunch.

“(But) I've never seen anybody get tired when they're making shots. I always say it, you get tired when you miss shots, and things get hard.

“And what we've done the last two games is things have gotten easier in the second half because our defence has done this, our physicality has done this, our rebounding's done this. We've risen to the challenge, and then it makes our offence easier.”

The Kings entered the game as one of the better performed sides since the FIBA Break, joining Adelaide with a 6-1 record, and they showed it in the early stages, racing out to a seven point advantage at the first break.

Kendrick Davis showed no signs that jeers from the Adelaide crowd would affect him and with 15 points to half time he helped his new side extend the margin to 11 part way through the second period.

While he had been doing a strong job of guarding Bryce Cotton to that point, Bul Kuol left the court with a little over three minutes of the first half to play with what appeared a right knee injury and it opened the door for the Sixers to mount a fight back of sorts.

Flynn Cameron was a constant threat driving at the basket while Cotton and Isaac Humphries started to find some space, helping the home side peg back the deficit to just six points at the main break.

The difference was only three when the sides had their last break as Cameron continued to score and DJ Vasiljevic went to town from beyond the arc for back-to-back three pointers.

When Cotton hit a three inside the first 30 seconds of the final period, the game was tied at 59-apiece.

The Sixers finished the period with a 12-3 run with Cameron racking up nine final quarter points and Vasiljevic hitting a massive triple late to close out the game and get the Adelaide crowd on its feet.

Wells said even when the Kings had stopped his side scoring and it was hard to score, there was a calmness and composure.

“I felt like we were really ready to play, but I couldn't really recognise some of the offensive possessions with our spacing and maybe concepts, and that just kind of tells me everybody was trying to do the right thing, but we just weren't quite clicking,” he explained.

“But as we've done multiple times, there's a calmness in the locker room. Guys say their deal. Everybody has been listening to the other person.

“It's a really, really professional, really kind of a cool environment for me to watch these guys kind of work the problem.

“And hopefully I can help them a little bit and then they go out there and they play. And they just made play after play after play.”

The Sixers will need to make more plays when they head to Brisbane to face the Bullets on Sunday afternoon.