Hate was in the air at Qudos Bank Arena, flying in so many directions between the Sydney Kings and the Adelaide 36ers that it was difficult to keep track.
Not since the NBL’s glory days in the 1990s has it broken containment lines and seeped into the mainstream to this degree. Even if you were only peripherally aware, it’s been almost impossible to avoid the noise.
Hate was the reason: coaches against coaches, players against commentators, Andrew Bogut against the Adelaide media, petulantly refusing to remove his headphones to answer questions about his alleged fat-shaming of 36ers owner Grant Kelley.
But the main storyline here, in the winner-take-all game five of the NBL’s grand final series, was on the court: Bryce Cotton against Kendric Davis, possibly the most intense one-on-one battle in all of Australian sport right now.
Cotton, 33, the face of the league, and Davis, 26, the outspoken upstart coming for his head.
The six-time MVP against the runner-up who went live on Instagram and alleged that he was the victim of a conspiracy when he didn’t win the award this season.
The guy who reckons he’s so good that he operates on another plane and therefore technically does not have a “rivalry” with anyone … versus the guy who yelled his face after Cotton sank the winner on the buzzer in game two.
“He said he never had a rivalry,” Davis said after Sydney’s 113-101 overtime win.
“He do now.”
Every sport has its advantage. For basketball, it’s that, come finals, when there’s tension, it’s doesn’t end at the end. You get to run it back at least three times, and as many five.
This season is the fourth in a row in which the grand final series has been pushed out to its maximum, which has been a boon for league executives. But until Sunday, no game five had ever gone to overtime.
If you missed it, bad luck. You missed a cracking end to the greatest grand final series in league history, and the coronation of a new ruler – watched by a crowd of 18,589, a new all-time record for the NBL, breaking the last one set … seven days ago.
Yes, business is booming for Australian basketball, which has perfectly leveraged the animus, all of which was real and seething.
“I’ve won before here, but there’s never been this interest, and the media support, and the health of the NBL,” said Kings coach Brian Goorjian.
“We won three championships in Sydney and the organisation folded. What this series has done for the league is huge … there’s a great base there, and I just think this series has [earned] an enormous amount of respect from the other codes.”
Davis declared on stage “it’s my time, now” after being named the Finals MVP, having contributed seven points in the overtime surge that secured Sydney’s sixth championship.
He finished with a joint game-high 35 – equal with Cotton – to go with 14 assists.
But it was Cotton who, for most of the game, looked destined to drive Adelaide to their first title since 2002.
The 36ers led by seven points at three-quarter-time. With just 44 seconds left to play, Cotton drained three free-throws to put Adelaide ahead 95-91 and seemingly head off Sydney’s attempted comeback – but the Kings somehow scrambled to level the scores.
Cotton missed a lay-up to win it with the final play of regulation time; he did not score again. Then he turned over the ball on the first play of overtime. Davis stole it, Torrey Craig scored, and the Kings’ momentum from there was unassailable.
That was, Davis said afterwards, largely due to the crowd.
“You could see it in overtime. Them guys was nervous,” he said.
“They say role players play better at home. So when the crowd get going on the road, the role players freeze up. They packed it out. They could be doing anything they want with their time and money. They came to support us. We don’t win without them. Honestly, like, we just don’t.”
As the floor swelled with family, friends and hangers-on after the final buzzer, Davis sought out Cotton, who he said he grew up watching and admiring.
He gave him a hug, and left it at that.
“He’s like a big brother to me, but I couldn’t show no love,” Davis explained.
“Because if you show love to your brother, he’ll take advantage of you. I don’t know if you got a big brother. I do. When I showed big brother too much love, he bullied me. So I couldn’t show big brother no love.
“And I consider myself the best in this league. So to be the best, you got to go through the best.”
Davis said he aspired to leave a similar “imprint” on the NBL as Cotton, and promised he’d be back at Sydney next year – so long as he wasn’t in the NBA, which remains his ultimate ambition.
He also doesn’t drink, but admitted that would probably change on Sunday night.
“When Bryce won MVP, he said something along the lines of, ‘Drinks on me.’ So I want to let the whole city know: championship on me,” he said.
“Drinks on me. I can’t let y’all know where that’s at. But it’ll be somewhere in the city. So if you find us, come out.”
