Wells praises guard's heroics

While the game and day belonged to Bryce Cotton, during his first appearance back in Perth, the moment on Sunday was Flynn Cameron's.

With 22.3 seconds left on the clock and down 94-93, Adelaide took control of the ball.

All eyes were on a cinderella finish to the game for Cotton.

But with Perth overplaying the five-time MVP, Tall Blacks international Flynn Cameron took it upon himself to win the game, calmly finishing a left-handed driving layup with 14.8 seconds of the clock.

That bucket proved the difference, with the 36ers holding on to win the Round 11 fixture 95-94.

Flynn Cameron is a $172,800 guard in the NBL’s official fantasy game, Beat The Coach, presented by Choice Hotels. Take on Damon Lowery and Beat the Coach in any round of the NBL26 Season and you’ll receive an entry into the end-of-season $10,000 prize draw, including $5,000 cash and $5,000 in Choice Hotels™ gift vouchers. Sign up to play now here.

In the post-game press conference, 36ers coach Mike Wells was quick to praise the emerging talent.

"There's a lot of there's a lot of guys that had to make unbelievable plays for us to win," Well said in the post-game press conference.

"I've said it a few times, I couldn't be happier for for Flynn. He was the guy that when I thought this was going to be a couple of year rebuild and we had to go find a young player in this league that was a free agent that could maybe take a jump to help us just change our culture.

"This was before this guy next to me (Bryce Cotton) arrived.

"I went to Auckland and I recruited him. I sat there for three days and I tried to paint a picture how good it was going to be. After a season that was pretty ugly, he believed me in me. It might be the best recruiting pitch I've ever done, to be honest with you.

"I needed a young guy to kind of anchor us and he was looking for an opportunity, [after] being behind a lot of great players at Melbourne United in that role.

"For him to be able to be able to set [the tone] in the game and to play alongside Bryce, Ice (Isaac Humphries) and Z (Zylan Cheatham) [is great], especially as there's times he just has to play off of them."

As well as hitting the game-winning shot, Wells was impressed by Cameron's versatility, which has unlocked new lineups for the 36ers.

"He kept competing and guarding. There's a physicalness to him that he can grind on people. Down the stretch, what we did was we went small and put him more as a four which we haven't really done [this season]," Wells said.

"It's just another lineup combination [up our sleeve], which saw him guard [Kristian] Doolittle.

"It was a massive thing for us to shift over the last just couple minutes to go a little smaller to try to get more shooting out there.

"I couldn't be happier for him to have an opportunity to be a really good player and play in these games. We all want to play in [and win] games like this."

The first-placed 36ers, who are 13-3 on the season, host Melbourne in a top of the table clash on Friday night from 7.30pm AEDT, live on ESPN.