The good, bad and ugly of Cole Anthony's game has been on full display as Melbourne United claimed a fiery 102-95 NBL derby win over South East Melbourne Phoenix.
Anthony broke the all-time record for most points in a Throwdown with 39 as he steered United to their third derby win over the Phoenix this season.
But the star import's well established issues with NBL officialdom raised their head in a third quarter during which the American received a behaviour warning before then conceding a technical foul for his reaction to a non-call after losing the ball in the lane.
United were well in control on Saturday, holding a 20-plus point lead at the time of Anthony's meltdown. But as he ranted and raved on the bench the Phoenix went on an 8-0 run to reduce that margin to 10 points.
United coach Jacob Chance said he has no issue with his team playing on the edge but Anthony's technical was a loss of discipline that the former NBA player needs to work on.
"We challenge him to be better in those scenarios and he knows that," Chance said.
"The important thing for him is that it counts as a personal foul, so it gives an opportunity to then foul out or be out of games, which we've seen this year."
Back-to-back triples by Joe Ingles late in the third term re-established United's dominance and with the lead at 15 with 1.30 to play in the fourth, Chance rested his starters.
The Phoenix though refused to give up and cut the margin to five points with 23 seconds to go when Chance had to bring his big guns back on the court to see out the game.
With seven seconds to go Anthony pulled down a defensive rebound, was fouled by Phoenix's Nathan Sobey, but then threw out an elbow which appeared to connect with Sobey.
After a lengthy review, Anthony was ejected for a flagrant foul while Sobey also received his fifth foul.
That led to Ingles taking two free throws in place of Anthony which he coolly slotted. D'Shawn Schwartz missed both of the Phoenix's shots at the line to allow United to take the game by seven points.
Sobey, who failed to score from the field in the opening half, finished with 23 points and Phoenix coach Josh King was hopeful the second half display has set a template for his team as they aim to snap a five-game losing run.
"It's the best half of basketball we've played in quite some time," King said.
"The guys were out there supporting each other, yeah.
"Okay, we want to win the game, but we weren't outcome based here. We wanted to leave this arena tonight feeling better about ourselves than when we entered the arena. And I think we can do that."
