The Adelaide 36ers survived a late scare before extending their NBL winning streak to three games with an 85-80 victory over the Sydney Kings on Saturday night.
After leading comfortably by 17 points early in the fourth quarter, the Sixers' lead was slashed to three points amid a flurry of turnovers and execution blues.
But, guided by red-hot MVP candidate Isaac Humphries (27 points, nine rebounds), they recovered their nerve in the last minute to prevail and move to 4-2 in front of 7087 fans, the Adelaide Entertainment Centre's biggest attendance this season.
Humphries, who according to 36ers coach Conner Henry is "playing the best basketball of his life right now", was well supported by fellow big Daniel Johnson (16 points) and defensive warrior Sunday Dech (13 second-half points).
After six games in 16 days, Adelaide will relish having seven days off before hosting Sydney again next Saturday.
"It's good to have a week off now and review where we're at," Henry said.
"We gave a bunch of points back in the fourth when we had six turnovers.
"We didn't handle the pressure; they got up into us and we got a little tired."
Rookie Dejan Vasiljevic (28 points) was easily the Kings best, single-handedly driving them early before Donald Sloan buried a triple on the quarter-time buzzer to close Sydney's lead to 24-22.
The Kings went stone cold in the second stanza, missing their first 11 shots as Adelaide, piloted by Humphries and Tony Crocker, stole the lead and progressed it to 38-25 on the back of a 13-1 run.
Vasiljevic minimised some of the damage to peg the 36ers' buffer back to 43-36 at halftime and, with some belated help from ex-NBA power forward Jarell Martin, back to three points midway through the third.
But another Adelaide run, this time 12-3, pushed the Sixers further clear, 62-51 at three-quarter-time.
The 36ers' lead swelled to 68-51 early in the fourth period and they looked home before Sydney valiantly mounted a late charge which fell short.
"We found ourselves down 17 halfway through the fourth, then we started a full-court press," Kings coach Adam Forde said.
"With a 14-2 run, we made it a ballgame.
"Unfortunately we just ran out of legs and minutes in the end."
