The Adelaide 36ers have rattled off a 17-0 fourth-quarter tear to storm to a surprising 103-95 win over the valiant Illawarra Hawks, whose season from hell took a darkish flip with star import Michael Frazier II struggling a suspected damaged arm.
In entrance of 9308 followers on the Adelaide Entertainment Centre – the largest residence NBL crowd in Sixers historical past – Antonius Cleveland impressed the native aspect to overturn an 81-89 deficit with lower than three minutes to go.
Frazier injured his left arm in a seemingly innocuous collision with Daniel Johnson and Anthony Drmic late within the first quarter, nearly actually making certain he joins fellow imports Peyton Siva (shoulder), Justin Robinson (knee) and George King (leg) on the sidelines for the remainder of the season.
“I’m going to take the high road and think he (Frazier) is going to be OK … but it’s another bad one,” Illawarra coach Jacob Jackomas mentioned.
“We’ve got one (healthy) American again, so of course I’m proud of them.
“I’d like to get them a win and finally we are going to.”
Adelaide led 23-19 at quarter-time and by as many as nine points in the second period before the Hawks, despite Frazier’s absence, lifted their game appreciably.
They appeared on the verge of one of their finest triumphs when Sam Froling’s tip-jam put them up by eight points with four minutes left in the fourth.
Adelaide coach CJ Bruton called a timeout and it had the desired impact.
Cleveland did it at both ends, knocking down a three and conjuring a steal which ended in a Mitch McCarron bucket to tie the game.
Successive triples from Robert Franks followed and a slew of Illawarra turnovers and offensive fouls put the fast-finishing 36ers, suddenly, in the box seat.
“You do not need to have to do this too typically,” Bruton mentioned.
“We received up the ground and pushed the ball however our depth on the defensive finish actually received us the win.”
Daniel Johnson (18 points) and Ian Clark (16) provided punch off the bench, while Cleveland (16) and Franks (16) were enormous in the fourth quarter.
Tyler Harvey (22 factors) and Deng Deng (19) piloted the cost for the Hawks, who have been led early by Frazier, who had a game-high 11 factors on the board earlier than his harm.
