Cooks and Kings annihilate Bullets

The Brisbane Entertainment Centre homecoming for the Brisbane Bullets has been crashed by the Sydney Kings, Xavier Cooks slicing them up in a one-sided 91-82 NBL win.

Cooks (23 points, seven rebounds, five assists) did as he pleased for the Kings on Saturday, exposing the Bullets at both ends of a floor they won titles on in 1987 and again 20 years later.

Double the size of their old 5000-seat Nissan Arena home court, the Entertainment Centre was bouncing when Casey Prather (17 points, five rebounds) began with a huge dunk and they led 17-15.

Brian Goorjian's side clicked into gear though, scoring the next 18 points to take the oxygen out of the building.

Turnovers - 16 in all - and low-pressure, disconnected defence had the Bullets staggering into half-time down 20 points, the hosts' 3/23 shooting from long range also problematic.

The Bullets trailed by as many as 29 points, but scored the last 16 points of the contest to salvage some dignity.

Brisbane, pre-season tournament champions, are now 0-3 while the Kings are 3-1.

Brisbane import point guard James Batemon was benched for the third quarter as his struggles continued while fellow starter Deng Adel was scoreless from five field goal attempts in 15 minutes.

Next Star Rocco Zikarsky (11 points, five rebounds in 15 minutes) enjoyed some welcome minutes in the final quarter but it was Kings rookie powerhouse Keli Leaupepe (22 points) who starred with a mix of power and long-range precision.

Jaylen Adams scored just two points and took six shots in 22 minutes for the Kings, who lost the final quarter 27-16 to take some gloss off their earlier dominance.

Even with the way the game ended, Goorjian was overall happy with the response to Sunday's loss to the Hawks.

"We had a little chat in the locker room about being better with the lead at the end of games," Goorjian said.

"The finish wasn't great, but really happy with the group and to get a win

"Xavier's such an important piece ... he's like a secondary point guard out there. Tonight, I thought, he was elite."

The Kings blew the game open early racing out to a 15-4 run on the back of a pair of three balls from Next Star Alex Toohey (11 points) leading to a timeout for Bullets coach Justin Schueller.

He got the immediate response he was after with Brisbane scoring the next 13 points starting with a triple from captain Mitch Norton who provided something that James Batemon wasn’t.

The Kings answered back with the last seven points of the first quarter and then the first nine of the second to blow the game open once more capped off with a three ball from Bul Kuol.

The Kings ended up going into half-time leading 47-27 with Xavier Cooks having 18 points, four assists, three rebounds and three steals while shooting at 50 per cent from the field while the Bullets went at just 27 per cent with 1/10 from deep and with 10 turnovers.

It was still a 20-point Sydney lead by three quarter-time before the Kings went on a 10-1 run to start the final term including a triple from rookie powerhouse Keli Leaupepe with the visitors leading by as much as 29.

To Brisbane's credit they fought the game out to get the final margin back to nine thanks to scoring the last 16 points.

Bullets coach Justin Schueller was pleased with the fight shown late but knows they can't keep getting in those holes to begin with.

"We tie with them in the third and win the fourth, and they're the positives in it and are things that we can continue to build on," he said.

"They're a talented group so for us to be able to say that for patches there we can go pound for pound which gives me great hope for what we can become, but the frustration is the hole in the second quarter that we create.

"We had six or seven turnovers in the first quarter again and it's just self-harming which is something that we have to be much better."

Sydney now heads to Adelaide for what will be a tantalising Friday night battle with the in-form 36ers.

The Bullets are back on the road on Saturday to take on former captain Nathan Sobey and the also winless South East Melbourne Phoenix.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

BRISBANE BULLETS 82 (Prather 17, Cook 12, Zikarsky 11)

SYDNEY KINGS 91 (Cooks 23, Leaupepe 22, Toohey 11)

BOX SCORE