Sydney Fry the Piggies

The Sydney Kings have continued their stellar run at the Kingdome making it 16 straight wins with a dominant 109-92 victory over their bitter cross city rivals, the West Sydney Razorbacks.

With star import centre Rolan Roberts being ruled out for the season with a torn pectoral muscle the Kings were forced to play with an all Australian line up for the first time since 2002 and for a majority of the game it did not seem to worry them one bit.

West Sydney tried to exploit the big Americans absence and for a quarter and a half it seemed to work, but in the end Sydney’s suffocating defence and accurate long range shooting shone through and they were able to register their third straight win over the Razorbacks this season.

Statistically it wasn’t the Kings best effort, but Sydney Coach Brian Goorjian mainly put that down to the fact that they came into the game unprepared.

“I thought tonight was going to be a difficult game to play in. I didn’t look at any tape, the total focus of the coaching staff right now is to find an import for this team,” said Goorjian.

“We didn’t have an import on the court tonight, but we got great leadership out of both CJ and Jason Smith and they really helped us play through the flat spots.”

Sydney’s leading scorer, CJ Bruton, was at his best yet again picking up a game high 24 points on the back of a 8/15 shooting performance (5/9 3pt). His night was made even greater though as he also dished out 10 assists to give himself a double double for the night.

Kings captain Jason Smith also had a strong performance with 17 points, while forward Ben Knight did a great job up front for his undermanned team with 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Import James Taylor was by far and away the best for the Razorbacks scoring 23 points, while centre Pero Vasiljevic (14 points and 12 rebounds) and guard Graeme Dann (13 points and eight rebounds) had solid outputs for the evening.

Brad Sheridan made his first start for the season in place of the injured Roberts and his long armed presence helped the Kings to suffocate the Razorbacks offence early on, limiting them to just one field goal in the first eight minutes to help the Kings set up a 19-6 lead.

That advantage didn’t last long though as the Pigs finally got their groove on going on a 12-4 run to end the period which saw them close to within five points at quarter time (23-18).

West Sydney continued to attack the basket and it paid dividends for them as they snuck within a single point of the Kings early in the second term, but three point bombs from Bruton, Smith and Kendall helped Sydney re-establish a 10 point lead midway through the period.

The margin hovered around that mark until the final 10 seconds of the half when Bruton hit two free throws and a buzzer beating jump shot to send the home side in to the main break ahead 51-37.

After controlling the game at the defensive end in the first half, Brad Sheridan hurt the Pigs at the offensive end at the beginning of the third quarter with seven points in two minutes to push the Kings advantage out to 21 points, but three pointers from Clint Reed and James Taylor saw the visitors cut the gap back to 15 points at the midway point of the term.

Sydney coach Brian Goorjian showed his genius by injecting BJ Carter into the fray and the youngster repaid his faith landing two long bombs to key a 13-3 run that had the Kings out by as many as 25 points, but the Razorbacks refused to go away and by three quarter time had the margin back down to 17 points (78-61).

A 9-2 run to start the final quarter looked to have put the result beyond doubt for Sydney, but West Sydney failed to lie down getting as close as 13 points before a nine point spurt from Bruton finally put the Razorbacks to the sword.

The Kings (20-3) will be in action next Wednesday night against the erratic Bullets outfit in Brisbane, while the Razorbacks (4-21) have to back up tomorrow night when they travel to Adelaide to take on the 36ers.

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