Bullets battle valiantly on road to 36ers

While never content not to win, the Brisbane Bullets did produce a brave performance to push Bryce Cotton and the Adelaide 36ers in their home opener on Sunday before the home team prevailed 87-80.

The Bullets came into the contest having lost inspirational point guard Mitch Norton to a knee injury from the season-opening win against the New Zealand Breakers and then two more key players went down in Friday night's narrow loss in ns.

That meant that both Sam McDaniel and Javon Freeman-Liberty were out of Sunday's game at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre with ankle injuries, but the Bullets still put in a strong showing and ended up attempting more shots than the Sixers and pulling down 11 offensive rebounds.

It was a valiant effort from the Bullets especially considering the absence of Norton, McDaniel and Freeman-Liberty especially considering Norton and McDaniel would have been the first choice defenders to try and quell the influence of Cotton for Adelaide.

In the end, the Bullets did a lot right and despite Cotton scoring 39 points, the rest of the 36ers team only scored 48 points while shooting a combined 17/36 from the field and 3/20 from three-point territory.

Brisbane did hold Adelaide to just 10 points in the fourth quarter and got back within five, but couldn’t quite complete the deal despite a host of impressive performances.

Casey Prather once again top-scored with 20 points to go with six assists and four rebounds with Tyrell Harrison continuing his standout start to NBL26 with another 17 points, 12 boards, three assists and three steals on 7/8 field goal shooting.

Alex Ducas also did a terrific defensive job on Adelaide captain DJ Vasiljevic helping limit him to five points on 2/9 shooting while having 16 points on 3/7 three-point shooting himself.

Jaylen Adams ended up with 14 points and three assists for Brisbane with Tohi Smith-Milner contributing seven points, three rebounds and two assists, Lamar Patterson five points, two boards and two assists, and Taine Murray two assists in his first career start.

The Bullets settled into the game after conceding the opening four points with Casey Prather and Tyrell Harrison combining for the team's first eight points.

Prather and Alex Ducas soon knocked down three-pointers as well and Jaylen Adams completed a three-point play, but on the back of 15 points from Bryce Cotton, Adelaide were leading 27-23 after one.

Ducas, Prather and Tohi Smith-Milner all hit three-pointers during the second quarter to keep the Bullets in touch and they did even briefly lead heading towards half-time.

It was Adelaide on top narrowly 48-47 at the break with Prather having 15 points for Brisbane and Harrison 10 to go with six rebounds while they were shooting at 56 per cent and had taken eight extra shots with the seven offensive rebounds.

It was a horror start to the second half for the Bullets with the 36ers scoring the first seven points and forcing Stu Lash into an early timeout but Ducas steadied Brisbane with his team's first five points of the half.

The Sixers did maintain a 10-point lead by three quarter-time with Cotton scoring another 15 points in that period before that lead blew out to 16 points at the start of the fourth.

The Bullets weren’t going away, though, and scored the game's next eight points as things did try up decidedly for both teams for a lot of the fourth quarter.

By the time Prather scored with four minutes to go, the Bullets were back within eight points and then got back to five with a minute to go, but couldn’t quite get back any closer than that.

The Bullets now can look forward to their first home game of NBL26 this coming Saturday night against the Tasmania JackJumpers at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2025/26

BRISBANE BULLETS 80 (Prather 20, Harrison 17, Ducas 16)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 87 (Cotton 39, Humphries 13, White 10)

BOX SCORE