Dual championship winner DJ Vasiljevic's love of playing against South East Melbourne has continued as he pulled Adelaide out of the fire for a 96-93 NBL victory.
The 36ers hosted the Phoenix at Adelaide Entertainment Centre in the standalone Friday night game and for a half, the building was deathly silent as South East Melbourne were in complete control.
The Phoenix team featured two former Sixers captains. Mitch Creek is now accustomed to playing his old side, but it was seven-time Adelaide MVP Daniel Johnson's first appearance against them.
Signed as an injury replacement player for Gorjok Gak, Johnson got a warm reception when he hit the floor and his two three-pointers in the first half were met by stunned silence from the 7833 crowd.
South East Melbourne led by 17 points at quarter time and 18 at the half.
There was a complete transformation, though, after the break, and it started with Adelaide going on a 10-2 run.
After sitting on the bench for the entire first half, Kyrin Galloway hit a pair of three balls as part of another 11-0 36ers run that got them within a point.
Vasiljevic then hit an off-balance three on the buzzer, going into three-quarter time to keep it a one-point game.
By the time Vasiljevic drained his third triple, Adelaide (4-7) were leading by eight with three minutes to go and in a game of dramatic momentum swings, went on to win by three.
Vasiljevic scored 20 of his 29 points in the second half against the same opponents he piled 42 points on last season when he was with the Sydney Kings.
Jacob Wiley had 17 points and 14 rebounds for the Sixers and Next Star Trentyn Flowers came up big in 26 minutes for 13 points and nine boards.
"Clearly you don't want to be 18 points down or anything like that," Sixers coach CJ Bruton said.
"But you have to make some timely buckets and keep pressure on, and as the game wore on we did that."
It was a tough loss for the Phoenix to take, coming off a disappointing defeat to Melbourne United on Sunday. Alan Williams finished with 23 points and 11 rebounds, while Creek added 20, Will Cummings 16 and Reuben Te Rangi 11.
"I have a lot of feelings, but mostly bad ones after that," a frustrated Phoenix coach Mike Kelly said after another the defeat left them 6-6 ahead of the FIBA break next weekend.
"We had a lead at half that was really good and then they came out and kind of smacked us in the third quarter.
"Our guys responded and got back in a good spot, but the next time we didn't respond as well and they finished, and we didn't."
