Sydney wasted no time reasserting its position as top dog of the NBL, destroying the Adelaide 36ers 133-89 in a devastating display at the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

A week after having their winning streak cut short at 15 games by title contenders Melbourne, a merciless Kings showed no signs of slowing down in their charge to a fourth-straight title, handing an embarrassed Adelaide its second worst loss in club history.

The Kings blitzed 34 points before the third-placed Sixers could notch double figures and never lifted their foot off the visitors' throat. Adelaide trailed by 20 after just seven minutes, and with skipper Brett Maher out injured never got any closer.

CJ Bruton blazed 22 points, 19 of which came before the midway mark of the second quarter, in just 26 minutes of court time while Mark Worthington added 22 and David Barlow 20.

Bulldozing import Rolan Roberts threw down 16 points after making the early inroads with 10 in the opening four minutes, while Ian Crosswhite brought down 13 boards with his eight points.

Jacob Holmes scored a game-high 24 points and 13 boards while Dusty Rychart contributed 20 points in a losing cause for the Sixers.

The Kings led 42-19 at the first change - their biggest scoring quarter of the season - 66-39 at the half and 105-63 at the end of the third.

The 44-point point margin was Sydney's biggest over Adelaide and ranks fourth on the Kings all-time list.

The three-time defending champion Kings moved further ahead on the ladder with the win, improving to 19-3 for the season while dropping the sliding Sixers to 15-10.

Adelaide has now lost five in a row, and have not beaten Sydney at the Kingdome for six years - a run of eight losses.

The victory also gives Sydney the series tie-breaker over the 36ers 2-1 after Adelaide won the early-season tussle and the Kings took out a heated clash a fortnight ago.

Adelaide coach Phil Smyth said Maher was ruled out with a sore hamstring and may miss the next few weeks with the injury.

As well as highlighting the Kings' dominance, Sydney coach Brian Goorjian said the margin showed just how valuable Maher was to the Sixers.

"I don't think you could pull another guy off a team that would have as much of an impact on the team, even back in the day with Andrew Gaze," Goorjian said.

"(Adelaide) was a different proposition without the ball in Brett's hands and it just shows how much he does for the group."

Despite their five-game slump, Smyth said the wheels had not fallen off the 36ers' season.

"There is certainly some concern, you can't lose five games and say there is no concern... I wouldn't say the wheels have fallen off, we've played some pretty high calibre teams in a short space of time, but in saying that, there are some changes we're going to have to make if we want to compete at the end of the season," Smyth said.

Goorjian admitted he was worried about how his team would perform following the emotion of the loss to Melbourne and a poor week of training.

"We didn't really have a great week of practice, we've had a lot of stuff on the road and there was a bit of flatness about everything, I guess with Christmas and everything," Goorjian said.

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