Brilliant Bryce Cotton has starred as the Adelaide 36ers sprinted to their best start to an NBL season in 25 years, snapping the Tasmania JackJumpers' three-game winning streak with a 98-89 victory.
Cotton (29 points) and Isaac Humphries (24) provided the dynamic one-two punch for the Sixers in front of a sellout crowd of 9320 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Thursday night.
The result means the 36ers advance to 3-0, their best start to a season since winning their first five games back in 2000-01.
Cotton also had nine assists, while knocking down 14-of-15 free throws.
"We came out of the gates in attack mode," Adelaide coach Mike Wells said.
"When we moved the ball and guys were playing downhill, we were pretty hard to guard."
Bryce Hamilton (22 points, nine assists) and captain Will Magnay (17 points) led the charge for the JackJumpers (3-2).
Cotton hit all seven free-throw attempts in the opening period, which featured 10 lead changes and finished with Adelaide inching ahead 21-20 on Humphries' last-second tip-in.
Turnovers and fouls hindered the JackJumpers in the second stanza.
The 36ers continued to live at the charity stripe, at one stage, implausibly, having attempted more free throws (25) than field goals (23).
Cotton was the chief beneficiary, his 19-point first-half haul including 12-of-13 foul shots.
Zylan Cheatham's spectacular reverse alley-oop slam - from a Cotton lob - was the highlight of the term as the Sixers moved ahead 51-42 at halftime.
Humphries was active in the paint in the third term, but Tasmania scored freely at the other end, closing the gap to a single point courtesy of former 36er Ben Ayre's eight-point flurry in 73 seconds and Tyger Campbell's three.
Adelaide captain Dejan Vasiljevic responded with a triple of his own to give the hosts a 76-72 cushion at three-quarter time.
Another Vasiljevic bomb capped a 9-2 burst to start the fourth as the Sixers' lead swelled to double digits.
Hamilton drained successive treys to slice the gap to six points, but that was as close as the visitors got.
"The foul discipline that we did not have in the first half set the tone," JackJumpers coach Scott Roth said.
"That put us on the back foot. Bleeding points that way is not very helpful across the board."
