Still irked by a horror loss, the Sydney Kings have shown their resilience by registering a 98-86 home victory against the NBL-leading Melbourne United.
It was an inspired performance from a Sydney outfit who were without forwards DJ Hogg and Jaylin Galloway.
The hosts were on a mission right from the start and put up 58 points in the first half to lead by as much as 15, before finishing with a critical 12-point win.
Kings coach Mahmoud Abdelfattah was a proud man afterwards.
"Credit to the guys, they did a hell of a job," he said.
"It just goes back to the defensive end and we kept them to 43 points each half.
"That was a phenomenal job but the guys wanted to do it, they stuck together.
"I'm just proud of them and happy for them."
Two weeks ago the Kings suffered a poor road loss to the then last-placed Adelaide 36ers.
They then hit back at home to hammer the New Zealand Breakers by 29 points, and it was a similar scenario this time around at Qudos Bank Arena.
Sydney hosted Melbourne fresh off a shock loss to the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Thursday, who were missing five key players.
Under pressure to hang on to their top-six spot, they were faced with a significant challenge against the league-leading United who were back to full strength and playing their last of seven consecutive road games in January.
The signs weren’t great for Sydney with Melbourne leading 26-22 at quarter-time after a Shea Ili (10 points) four-point play, but the hosts got rolling in the second quarter.
The Kings put up 36 points to light up the 12,921 crowd to lead 58-43 at the half with former NBA trio Jaylen Adams (16 points), Jonah Bolden (10 points, seven rebounds) and Denzel Valentine (15 points, nine assists) combining for 32 points on 12-of-20 shooting.
It didn’t take long for United to close to within three points during the third quarter, but Makuach Maluach (18 points, 7-of-11 shooting) provided the steadying spark for Sydney with nine points just before three quarter-time.
Melbourne kept coming, but Sydney saw them off to improve to fourth position with a 12-13 record.
Jordan Hunter also had 12 points and nine rebounds, captain Shaun Bruce 12 points and five assists, and Angus Glover 10 points after making the start.
Chris Goulding had a rough shooting night for Melbourne with 2-of-11 from deep for eight points while as a team they went 6-of-30 from the land of plenty.
Luke Travers top-scored for the visitors with 15 points to go with 10 rebounds, five blocks and three assists.
Melbourne coach Dean Vickerman felt it was the third quarter that cost his team.
"I can't get my mind off the second quarter at the moment," he said.
"We made massive improvements in the third to get ourselves back in the game and got back to three on Tanner's (Krebs) three-ball, and there was a lot of things that we did to look aside from shooting the three-ball like we're capable of."
