NBL23 basketball news: Adelaide 36ers capitulate in New Year’s Eve loss to Cairns Taipans

18 points up, seven minutes to play — game over, right? What unfolded on New Year’s Eve left Adelaide 36ers’ coach “p*****” and will go down as one of the NBL’s all-time capitulations.

It should have been a walk in the park.

On the back of four straight wins, the Adelaide 36ers were hitting their straps.

And then, in the space of six minutes and 41 seconds, they weren’t.

Here’s an in-depth look at the record-breaking New Year’s Eve capitulation in Cairns that dumped the Sixers out of the top six and left coach CJ Bruton “pissed”.

Adelaide entered its clash with Cairns on the last day of 2022 with plenty of momentum, having strung together four straight wins and welcomed new import Ian Clark into the line-up.

The Taipans, missing star big man Keanu Pinder with an ankle injury, were heavy underdogs against a stacked Sixers team that had appeared to have banished the demons of the first half of the season and worked its way into finals seedings.

CJ Bruton was left fuming by Adelaide 36ers’ capitulation.

And, early doors, it looked like the game was going to script. The Sixers had skipped out to a 10-point lead and given themselves an opportunity to put it to bed.

Instead, in a 3.43 stretch from the 7.44 mark of the second quarter, Adelaide shot 0-7 from the field and had three turnovers as its turnstile defence allowed 16-straight points to the Taipans, who jumped out to a 36-30 lead and carried a one-point margin into halftime.

Back to the drawing board for Bruton and the Sixers who emerged from the locker room with a renewed urgency after the long break, lifted their defensive effort and took a double-digit lead into the last.

Hyrum Harris drivers the 36ers forward.

They kept the foot on the gas, too, and, when new import Ian Clark drained a three pointer, the Sixers led by 18, 78-60, with 6.41 to go in the contest.

Game over, right?

Wrong.

What unfolded was a basketball treat for the neutral, nirvana for Taipans’ fans and a shock for Sixers’ supporters, eagerly anticipating a fifth straight win against an undermanned opponent, which had squandered its past two games.

The Sixers had put the cue in the rack and never-say-die Snakes would make them pay the ultimate price.

Anthony Drmic of the 36ers reacts during Adelaide’s loss.

Player-of-the-game Shannon Scott stopped the Taipans’ rot with a lay-up and then DJ Hogg made two free throws, before Clark came up with another bucket.

From there, in a four-minute stretch at the 5.17 mark, the Taipans poured in 18-straight points to take the lead by two, 82-80. Incredibly, the 36ers would get only two shots off during that run — both misses — and turned the ball over six times, all of those errors coming in a diabolical two-and-a-half minutes that featured a pair of shot clock violations and two offensive fouls.

The Sixers’ offence stagnated and they didn’t deal with Cairns’ mix of zone defence and amped up full-court pressure but Clark bobbed up again, draining a huge three from the corner that gave his side the lead, 83-82, with 47 seconds left.

They would not score again as Scott immediately struck back with a three, completing his career-high 31 points, before Tahjere McCall made a free throw to end the game 86-83.

Bruton barely contained his frustration, post game, admitting his side “went backwards”.

Shannon Scott of the Taipans drives up court.

“You saw it, you can watch it back over and over again if you didn’t notice, we played not to lose and it’s not the way you play the game of basketball,” Bruton said.

“I’m not happy with how our team played out.”

Glaringly, NBA champion Clark was the only Adelaide player to score a bucket in the last 7.16 of the game.

Hogg had just two points across the first three quarters, but exploded for 11 in the last as the Taipans poured in 32 points, the Sixers basically standing and watching as the Snakes beat them off the dribble, careened to the cup and drained wide open looks.

In the end, the 36ers allowed the equal-biggest fourth-quarter comeback in the NBL’s 40-minute era.

Relief is on the way Friday for the 36ers — or should be — with lowly Illawarra next on the menu in the comforts of the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.