Ice-cool Daniel Johnson helped Adelaide survive a massive late scare to defeat the New Zealand Breakers 95-92 on Sunday.
Comfortably ahead 93-80 with just over two minutes to play, the Sixers suddenly staggered as Edgar Sosa (24 points) sparked a stunning 12-0 Breakers revival to slice the deficit to one point.
After rebounding teammate Josh Childress's missed three, Johnson (17 points, 11-of-12 free throws) was fouled and calmly connected twice from the foul line before Sosa's desperate heave at the death rimmed out.
Nathan Sobey starred with 22 points and six assists as Adelaide, minus Mitch Creek (hamstring), recorded their first triumph over any of top title challengers the Breakers, Perth or Melbourne this season.
Ahead 29-23 at the first break, the 36ers extended their advantage to 14 points following a 14-3 stretch either side of quarter-time against the championship-favourite Breakers who were struggling to click.
Offensively off-colour for prolonged periods and sluggish defensively, Breakers coach Paul Henare did his best to change the tempo, creating stops in momentum through regular fouls and calling three time-outs in the space of four minutes.
The slowdown ploy paid off momentarily as NZ chopped the deficit to 52-44 at halftime.
The visitors further reduced the margin to four points before Adelaide, with Sobey and Majok Deng active, embarked on a 14-2 tear to blow the margin back out to 16 points.
The Breakers pegged it back to 11 at three-quarter-time and they had one last burst in them.
A pair of second-half technicals against Anthony Drmic for flopping halted the Sixers briefly but they did just enough to survive as the Breakers - with quartet Alex Pledger, Finn Delany, Rob Loe and DJ Newbill all fouling out - came up fractionally short.
The final two minutes aside, Adelaide coach Joey Wright was happy with most aspect of the 36ers' performance.
"We did a great job of rebounding, great job of challenging and of matching their intensity," he said.
"There was great individual pressure that each (player) brought.
"We did a great job of executing, all except the last two minutes."
An angry Henare took little solace out of his side's late 12-0 rally.
"I thought that was up there with our worst 30-35 minutes of basketball," he said.
"It's on us to play with the right intent from the start and not dig ourselves out of holes."
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