The Sydney Kings have handed new Perth basketball coach Mike Ellis a nasty welcome to The Jungle.

The reigning champions made the re-match of last year's NBL grand final look like a mismatch in the 114-95 rout at Challenge Stadium, which has been renamed The Jungle for the new season.

But it was more like a party in a park for the Sydneysiders with new import Ebi Ere shining with 25 points in their season opener.

Although both sides were vastly different from the outfits involved in the grand final last year, the result was not in doubt from the opening minutes.

It was Ellis's first NBL match as a head coach and it was always going to be a testing debut against one of the best in Brian Goorjian.

Goorjian's team has been tipped as favourites for claiming back-to-back titles and he will be delighted with the impressive first-up effort of his backcourt trio of Jason Smith, CJ Bruton and Ere.

They clearly outpointed the Cats' little men with James Harvey doing his hopes of a Boomers call-up no favours in front of national coach Goorjian.

Ellis's side looked out of sync for most of the match in front of 4,000 fans against a Kings team which ruled at both ends of the court.

Part of the reason for the Cats' lack of cohesion must be blamed on the late arrivals of imports John Jackson and Reed Rawlings for this season.

Jackson arrived less than a month ago while Rawlings only had his work visa cleared on Friday.

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