With "the look" in his eyes, big gun Bryce Cotton has delivered against his former NBL side, bagging 36 points to help steer Adelaide to a 95-84 victory over Perth.
The Wildcats arrived in Adelaide for their Sunday afternoon clash determined to make amends after letting an 18-point three-quarter-time lead slip to lose by one in their round 11 clash this month.
And building a 14-point lead midway through the first quarter, they appeared destined to do some damage in front of a record crowd of 10,041 at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.
Star centre Isaac Humphries headed for the bench after two fouls in the opening five minutes with Adelaide patchy across the court.
But the 36ers, who have only lost once in their past 11 matches and just four times for the season, built into the match, which was dubbed the Cotton Cup.
Five-time league MVP Cotton signed a three-year deal with Adelaide this year after nine seasons with Perth.
Adelaide narrowed a nine-point quarter-time deficit to trail 49-46 at halftime, and the home side then showed their class in a dominant 29-9 third quarter, which Sixers coach Mike Wells called their "best defensive quarter of the year by far".
Cotton added 10 points amid his game-high haul of 36 to help Adelaide push the lead out to 75-58, the hosts hitting the last 14 points of the term.
Securing their 10th home win of the season, Flynn Cameron and Dejan Vasiljevic both finished with 17 points for Adelaide.
"He was not going to be denied tonight," Wells said of Cotton.
"He had the look in his eye and at times he was telling us, 'Get everybody out of my way', and I'm thinking, all right, what do you want me to do with the other nine guys, Bryce?
"We're still getting to know him a little bit when he gets locked into that sort of thing, but I saw the look and I think our team saw the look."
Perth's quest to shut down the American-born maestro wasn't helped with the loss of David Duke Jr after only three minutes, with the guard hyper-extending his elbow after getting his arm caught as he went up for a rebound.
The Wildcats import could be set for a lengthy period on the sidelines, although coach John Rillie wasn't sure of the severity of the injury.
"When you lose your primary ball handler three minutes into the game, a guy that does a great job on Bryce, and we've got other guys on minute restrictions that are coming back from injury," Rillie said.
"There's opportunity there, but then you're playing the number one team in the competition and we had to manage a lot of things tonight.
"The way Adelaide finished the second quarter kind of just wrestled a little bit of the momentum away from us - we still went in with a lead, but we were just a little undisciplined down the last couple of minutes which gave them a nice momentum into the change room.
"And then the third quarter was not pretty by us."
Wildcats big man Kristian Doolittle was unable to replicate his 30-point form against Tasmania, with the forward tallying 18 points, which still topped his team's scoring.
He also added six rebounds and three assists.
