Melbourne United continue to be the NBL team you would least like to face coming off a loss, as they put on an impressive all-round showing to beat the previously on-fire Adelaide 36ers 106-79.
United got better the longer Sunday's game went to win by 27 points on the back of 53 per cent field-goal shooting and 26 assists to just eight turnovers to celebrate the 450th game of captain Chris Goulding (13 points).
The 36ers arrived at John Cain Arena on Sunday on the back of three straight victories, including at home to the Sydney Kings on Friday night, to be the form team of the league.
Melbourne had a whole week to stew over losing their home opener last Sunday against the Cairns Taipans, having not lost consecutive games last season until the Championship Series.
It was a high-scoring and entertaining first half on Sunday with plenty of momentum swings, including Adelaide finishing the opening quarter strongly to be leading 29-24.
The longer it went, the more United worked on top to be leading 58-52 by half-time.
Melbourne dominated the third period with 21 points to eight, including an individual 8-0 run from big man Marcus Lee (13 points, five rebounds, three blocks).
The home side eventually won by 27 points and improved to 4-2, with Ian Clark top-scoring with 18 points and three assists.
Rob Loe added 16 points and six rebounds, Jack White 15 points and seven boards, and Matthew Dellavedova 11 points and eight assists.
United coach Dean Vickerman was especially happy with the third quarter performance.
"I like eight points against, that's great, and I thought it was our whole group in that third quarter," he said.
"The starting group forced a time-out pretty quickly and then the bench group caused eight stops in a row and then got scored on, but had another three stops in a row.
"The way we locked down defensively with little adjustments from half-time and the focus was on Davis and DJ all night and we did a solid job."
It was a tired-looking Adelaide team as they shot just 37 per cent and went 3-of-16 from three-point range, with Isaac Humphries a shining light with 16 points, six rebounds and three blocks.
Captain DJ Vasiljevic had a tough outing thanks to both Shea Ili and Dellavedova for just eight points and three turnovers on 3-of-12 shooting.
Montrezl Harrell had 12 points and nine rebounds, and Kendric Davis 17 points and two assists.
Sixers coach Mike Wells knows there will still be some growing pains as his squad finds their feet.
"This group has not been together a long time and we haven't been in a lot of road games like this yet so it's a different game when you go on the road," he said.
"The scoreboard wasn't in our favour today, but there's a lot of lessons as this group moves forward."
