Sweeter way for Phoenix to advance

Nothing has come easy for the South East Melbourne Phoenix in NBL25, so coach Josh King will wear it as a badge of honour the hole they dug themselves out of on Sunday to reach the NBL Playoffs.

Having done a terrific job to shake off their horror 0-5 start to the season, the Phoenix have proven resilient all season long. That had to be the case again in Sunday's Play-In Game against the Adelaide 36ers at John Cain Arena.

South East Melbourne found themselves 20 points down in the first half. Going into half-time, they had shot 9/35 at 25 per cent from the field, went 3/18 from deep and had eight turnovers.

Their 26-point tally was their lowest in franchise history too, but in the second half the Phoenix were brilliant outscoring the 36ers 59 points to 30 while going 19/40 from the field and 6/14 from downtown.

Whether it was Matt Hurt finishing with 25 points or Ben Ayre knocking down four three-pointers, Nathan Sobey shaking off a scoreless first half for 11 points in the second, the defence of Matt Kenyon or the efforts of Owen Foxwell and Angus Glover, it was a turnaround by committee.

"They've been battle tested this year. They've played for three different coaches so they've faced adversity and they've heard a lot of different voices," King said.

"They didn’t get off to quite the best start, but it's almost fitting, right, I think for this team to have won that way.

"It would be great to come out and win by 30 but I think it's a little bit sweeter this way by finding a way to bond together, going through some adversity.

"It was just a great collective effort and Matt led us offensively obviously, but even the guys who haven’t played as much came in and had big performances to push us over the top."

The Phoenix started the season with five straight losses, had three head coaches in the space of five games, and have even had four trips to Perth thrown in the mix when you add in HoopsFest and the Seeding Qualifier.

They were also without star point guard Derrick Walton Jr on Sunday and reaching a Playoff series was never going to be easy.

South East Melbourne then had quite the hole to dig themselves out of but they went on to produce the biggest comeback of NBL25.

They outscored Adelaide 59-30 in the second half to set up a Playoff battle with the Illawarra Hawks starting in Wollongong on Friday February 28.

Ever since King arrived to take over as coach for his first game back on November 1, what's impressed him above everything else has been the resiliency of the Phoenix playing group, and just how much of a unit they are.

The only way the Phoenix could now be in a Playoff series having played the last 10 games without Walton since his hamstring injury was for Foxwell to continue to step up, and for Ayre to be joining him.

The only reason the Phoenix weren't down by 20-plus was a couple of threes from Ayre just before half-time and then when he hit fourth bomb of the game with 1:15 to go, it was the final nail in the coffin of the 36ers.

"Ben Ayre has stayed ready all year long. The reason Ben Ayre is having success right now is because Ben Ayre, when he wasn’t playing, pushed our team in practice every single day," King said.

"He competed his you know what off every single day and he was ready for his opportunity. That's why Ben Ayre's having success and he's a good basketball player.

"Unfortunately it took D-Walt getting hurt for him to get a real chance, but he stayed ready and I'm really proud of him and he was a huge reason why we came back and won this game."

With almost two weeks now until the series with the Hawks starts could be good news for the Phoenix to regain Walton from his hamstring injury, but King is short on answers right now.

"We'll see and he's done a great job of pushing himself," King said.

"I think he has a test this week that will kinda let us know, but if there's a way for him to play, he wants to play and he's going to play.

"We have almost two weeks before that first game so we'll just have to see where he is."