Look, if you watched Adelaide dismantle South East Melbourne on Tuesday night at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, you saw what happens when Bryce Cotton finds his range and everyone around him steps up. The 36ers booked their ticket to the grand final for the first time since 2018, and mate, they made it look almost simple in the end.
Adelaide won 108-96 against South East Melbourne Phoenix in the deciding Game 3 of their playoff series, with Cotton pouring in 38 points at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, giving him a 36.3 scoring average for the semi-final series which the Sixers won 2-1. Fair dinkum, that's the kind of playoff performance that keeps crowds on their feet.
What made this win really special wasn't just Cotton's brilliance. Adelaide captain Dejan Vasiljevic responded to his promotion into the starting five by scoring 27 points, including 6-of-10 three-pointers. That's the kind of supporting cast you need when you're chasing a flag. Coach Mike Wells got his tactics spot on too. "I couldn't be more proud," he said, and you could hear it in his voice. The 36ers won the offensive rebounds and crushed them on the boards 52-31.
Here's the thing about Adelaide's comeback to the grand final: it matters for the club's narrative. The Adelaide 36ers reached the Grand Final in 1985, 1994, 2013–14 and 2017–18, but they haven't been back since that 2018 loss to Melbourne United. Eight years is a long drought for a club with Adelaide's pedigree. Cotton won his sixth NBL MVP as a member of the 36ers, and his arrival in Adelaide was meant to change things. Tuesday night proved that promise wasn't empty.
South East Melbourne weren't pushovers by any stretch. Ian Clark kept them fighting with 32 points, but that wasn't enough against Adelaide's intensity. Nathan Sobey, the ex-36er playing against his old mob, managed just 17 points after a rough shooting night. Sobey had carried the team in Game 2 with a season high 41 points on 14-27 shooting, but the home crowd made him a marked man this time around.
Now comes the real challenge. The 36ers will face a best-of-five game grand final series against Sydney, starting in the Harbour City on Saturday. The Kings aren't the kind of opponent you want to face when you're trying to end a championship drought, but at the end of the day, if Adelaide plays with the same intensity they showed against Melbourne, they've got every chance to bring a flag home to South Australia. Cotton's shown he's capable of carrying a team through the finals. Now he needs to do it one more time.