36ers star took it personally. United paid

Melbourne United dared Zylan Cheatham to shoot on October 7. On Thursday night, he made them pay.

When the teams last met at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, a big part of United’s defensive plan was to sag off Cheatham on the perimeter. Melbourne dominated early and held on for the win despite a late Adelaide fightback.

Cheatham took that personally. He came out firing in the rematch with 8 points and 2 three-pointers in the first quarter, and finished with 20 points, 12 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals and 1 block in the 36ers’ 101-93 win.

He wasn’t the only one backing himself from outside. Matt Kenyon kept letting it fly from the corners and went 2/3 for the game. Cheatham says it’s no surprise to anyone inside the group.

“Watching the game that I played against them last time and how they guarded me, and how they just completely disregarded me on the perimeter, that is something I seen and I took personal,” Cheatham said.

“It kind of again put me in a stagnant stance and I didn’t really put my hands on the game, and that’s something that personally I came out and I knew I wanted to make them pay for not trying to guard me.

“But I mean we work on shooting every day, that’s something that we’re very adamant about and we believe in everybody. We believe in Matt Kenyon, and I mean, what he does on the floor is not surprising to us. He does it every day.”

Adelaide’s first half was blistering. The 36ers led 27-10 at the first break and stretched the margin to 34 points in the second term. They went into half-time up 59-35 after shooting 17/33 from the field, 10/19 from three-point range and 15/16 at the foul line.

United didn’t go away, though. Melbourne clawed back to within four points with three minutes to play before Adelaide answered with the next eight points, including a pair of triples from six-time MVP Bryce Cotton.

John Jenkins III caught fire from long range, top-scoring with 21 points on 4/9 from beyond the arc, while six-time MVP Bryce Cotton added 19 points, 10 assists and 5 rebounds.

Now Cheatham wants the 36ers to find 40 minutes of that first-half basketball and keep their foot on the throat.

“One of my messages at half-time was that we can’t play to not lose, we’ve got to keep playing to win,” Cheatham said.

“I feel like when you get those leads, you start playing slower and playing a little bit more timid, and you’re not really executing your offence to try to score, and just kind of just trying to waste clock or do things like that.

“That’s something we talked about at half-time but as much as we have to be better, we also have to give credit to the League. These are elite basketball players, that team is very elite so we knew they were going to go on a run at some point.

“We knew they weren’t going to go down that easy but I think the main thing is we’ve got to stay with our identity no matter if we’re up 20 or down 20, and we’ve got to keep the ball popping.”