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The Sydney Kings have guaranteed themselves the NBL minor premiership with a 19-point win over the Perth Wildcats at Challenge Stadium tonight.
The Kings have four more games left in the regular season but even if they lose all of those they will maintain top spot ahead of the second-placed Melbourne given they have beaten the Tigers three times this season.
Tonight’s 104-85 win over Perth means it is the fifth time since the 2002-03 season that coach Brian Goorjian has led the Sydney side to top spot at the end of the regular season.
Goorjian said his team wanted to stay focused on playing tough defence and grinding the Wildcats for 48 minutes.
“This is the best game that we have played in three or four weeks because we got contributions from everyone and it was a nice one in the run to the play-offs,” Goorjian said.
“We felt like we had top spot (before this win). I don’t think this team was going to lose five games down the stretch.
“We have got some home games left and we have been training in a different manner, playing the games, trying some things and moving some bodies around a lot more and tonight I played the main guys harder and really went after this one a lot harder than we did the last couple because I really thought it would be like a play-off game.”
Wildcats coach Scott Fisher said when the Kings are playing with confidence they are the best team in the league.
“We were under a lot of pressure offensively, their pressure sped us up,” he said.
Dontaye Draper top-scored for the Kings with 20 points, while Gerald Brown was the best of the Wildcats with 16.
The Kings set a cracking pace, scoring the first 12 points in three minutes before Perth guard Gerald Brown nailed a three-point shot to get them on the board.
The downside of the rugged first term for the league-leaders was the loss of Luke Kendall after just 35 seconds of play when he injured his right knee.
However he returned to the court with four minutes left in the opening term and hit a long range bomb with three seconds to play to give the visitors a 32-18 lead at quarter time.
Scoring the first five points of the second quarter the Kings continued to control the tempo and opened up a 24-point lead towards the end of the second term before Redhage scored seven of the last 14 points of the half to reduced to lead to 20 at half-time.
The Wildcats edged closer, reducing the margin to 15 at three-quarter time.
But then a barrage of Glen Saville three-pointers sealed the fate of the Wildcats.
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