From booed to benchmark: Kings’ remarkable turnaround

Besides a shoulder injury that Brian Goorjian admits isn’t looking good for Tyler Robertson, the Sydney Kings got exactly what they wanted on Friday night.

The Kings confirmed top spot with an 11th straight win, a 117–77 victory at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, and another 100-point performance to close the regular season at 24–9.

Kendric Davis starred with 31 points and eight assists in just 27 minutes, while six other players scored in double figures.

Goorjian arrived nervous about two things: securing first place and getting through unscathed. The first was handled emphatically. The second was not.

Robertson suffered what appeared to be a serious shoulder dislocation and, even with three weeks until the Playoffs Series, Goorjian would be surprised to see him again in NBL26.

"(I know) just that it doesn’t look great and he's going to the hospital to have it looked at it, but it was a hard hit," Goorjian said.

"It didn’t like positive news for us, or Tyler. It doesn’t look good and that's all I know."

With the Sydney Kings outscoring the Brisbane Bullets 91–44 after quarter-time, Goorjian was able to manage the night exactly how he wanted.

All 10 available players logged at least 13 minutes, with Torrey Craig (14 points, seven rebounds) producing his best performance since arriving and Matthew Dellavedova (13 points, five assists) his strongest since returning from concussion.

"We did tick all the boxes tonight and I'm always nervous as you know because if we lose this game tonight and Adelaide win, we lose that top spot and it would be a real disappointment for all the work we've done," Goorjian said.

"I was looking at those minutes because we're not going to play for at least three weeks just to get as many guys as we could having minutes under their belt, so it was really important for someone like Torrey Craig tonight to get five and six-minute hits instead of shorter stints.

"Especially for those guys (Craig and Dellavedova) it was very (important) and we can do a lot in that three-week break, but it's going to be hard to simulate game so tonight getting those guys big stints of consecutive game minutes was a priority coming into this game."

Goorjian, a six-time NBL championship coach, has now secured his 11th top spot finish.

He admitted there was outside noise heading into the season, particularly around the decision not to use a third import spot after losing Keli Leaupepe and Jason Spurgin. The low point came with a shock home loss to the Tasmania JackJumpers, but since then the Kings have won 20 of their past 24 games, including 14 of 16 and their last 11 straight at an average margin of 20 points.

As a result, Brian Goorjian said this group may rank among the proudest he has ever coached.

"This might be of the times that I've finished on top of the ladder go down as one of the all-time and it's an incredible group," Goorjian said.

"At the start of the year we were getting a lot of negativity about our team even in the venue there was a negative vibe to it and when we lost that game to Tassie and they're dancing underneath our basket, we got booed off our own floor."

He pointed to the shift since that low point, when the Tasmania JackJumpers celebrated on their home court.

"Moving from there to having 18,000 coming to watch us and doing what we did to get here, and our destiny was in our hands tonight, but we had to win 11 in-a-row and 14 out of 16 to finish in the top two and to get an automatic semi-final bid.

"It's quite an achievement for a team as well coming into this that wasn’t picked in the top four, so I showered them after the game and I'm very, very proud of this and now there's another challenge with a new day starting tomorrow."