Bryce Cotton rescued Adelaide from a New Zealand comeback on Friday night, scoring 13 points in the fourth quarter to carry the 36ers to a 108–101 win at Spark Arena. His final line — 31 points and six assists — was familiar enough. The more intriguing fantasy development came at the other end, where Carlin Davison kept making plays even with Parker Jackson-Cartwright back in the Breakers' line-up.
Adelaide led by 13 in the first half and 56–44 at the break, only for New Zealand to roar back to 74–72 at three-quarter-time. DJ Vasiljevic put the hosts ahead early in the last period. Cotton answered with consecutive threes, then Keanu Rasmussen hit the late shot that pushed the margin back to six. The NBL's match report confirms the seven-point finish and the individual numbers. This was Adelaide's fifth win from 10 games, and it came in Cotton's 50th appearance for the club, a milestone flagged in the 36ers' match preview.
Davison finished with 16 points, 11 assists, five rebounds and three steals. Jackson-Cartwright, returning to a side that had leaned heavily on Davison during his absence, recorded nine points, six assists and five rebounds. Those two lines do not tell us how every possession was shared, but they do show that Davison's playmaking did not vanish the moment New Zealand's established lead guard returned. For draft managers, that is a more useful signal than automatically writing off the temporary ball-handler.
The context makes Davison's night particularly interesting. He amassed 25 assists across New Zealand's two Round 5 matches while Jackson-Cartwright was sidelined, according to the official SuperCoach Round 5 recap. Eleven more against Adelaide suggests the Breakers can still use him as a creator alongside their returning star. Whether that arrangement survives tougher match-ups is the next question, not something Friday's box score can settle on its own.
Sam Mennenga supplied 28 points, including six three-pointers from nine attempts, and Charles Bediako added 16 points and five blocks. That is a sizeable spread of production for a losing side. Jackson-Cartwright's quieter scoring night is worth watching, but Davison's assists and Mennenga's shooting make it premature to treat the Breakers as a one-man offence waiting for its star to reclaim every touch.
Adelaide's supporting cast mattered just as much. John Jenkins III scored 21 points and made four threes after attracting attention for inconsistent scoring earlier in the season. Nick Rakocevic posted 17 points, 11 rebounds and five assists; Zylan Cheatham added 17 and seven rebounds. Jenkins' performance strengthens the case for monitoring his scoring role, while Rakocevic's all-round contribution offers a different route to value. One productive game is not a reason to assign either player a new guaranteed workload.
Both teams still have a second Round 7 fixture. Adelaide host Brisbane on Sunday 1 November, while New Zealand visit Melbourne United on Monday 2 November, as shown in the official Adelaide schedule and Breakers schedule. Cotton's late-game control reinforces his standing among premium SuperCoach options, but the next game will test whether Jenkins can repeat his shot-making and how Adelaide distribute minutes around their established frontcourt. For New Zealand, the Davison–Jackson-Cartwright split is the obvious rotation watch.
Managers weighing those decisions can use the Buckets NBL SuperCoach guide alongside their own current squad and lockout settings. Friday gave us a finished result and several real role clues; Sunday's and Monday's games will decide how much of that information carries into the next round.
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