Cooks (23 points, 12 rebounds, four assists, three blocked shots) did everything for his team and unsurprisingly was named the winner of the Claude Williams MVP award, as the purple and gold celebrated NBL Indigenous Round with their season-high, sixth consecutive victory.
“We’re a plus-16 with ‘X’ on the floor,” Head Coach Chase Buford said.
“He’s terrific. I thought offensively tonight he was really really good, just abusing one on one coverages, versus (Stephen) Zimmerman or whoever they threw out there at him.”
Coach Buford wasn’t entirely happy about his team’s performance however, pointing to a defence that gave up 88 points to an undermanned Taipans.
“I think it’s three games in a row now where our defence wasn’t quite up to the standard that we hold ourselves to,” Chase said.
“We can be better defensively, we know that.”
In a back-and-forth opening quarter, Cairns’ import duo offset seven points from Cooks and six from the superb Jaylen Adams (21 points, four assists) to help the Taipans tie the game at 25 at the first break.
Then a monster dunk from Cooks gave Sydney a 47-44 lead at intermission and his next nine points kept the visitors at bay.
The Kings will now be on the road for the rest of March, starting with a Round 15 battle with the Taipans again at the Cairns Convention Centre on Sunday, March 13, from 5.30pm.
Kings holding court again after all stars shine bright
ANOTHER brilliant performance from talented forward Xavier Cooks, helped lead the Brydens Lawyers Sydney Kings to a 98-88 victory over the Cairns Taipans on Sunday afternoon at Qudos Bank Arena in front of a monster crowd of 9,112.