Bullets beat 36ers with Prather scoring 33

Casey Prather and Tyrell Harrison dominated the first half and the Brisbane Bullets ended up producing a complete team performance in front of the 1985 NBL championship group to beat the Adelaide 36ers 102-83.

The Bullets regained Harrison and Tohi Smith-Milner following last Friday night's loss in Perth and were back at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre looking to reward the home fans with the night also honouring the 1985 championship team.

Brisbane raced out to a 12-2 start with Harrison and Prather setting the tone and that duo ended up with 29 points on 12/12 shooting in the first quarter, and then 39 points on 16/18 by half-time.

However, it was still only a six-point game at the break but the Bullets gradually built on that throughout the second half including 11 straight points in the fourth term on the way to the eventual 19-point win.

Prather produced his best performance as a Brisbane player with 33 points and five rebounds on 14/17 shooting from the field and 4/5 from three-point territory.

Harrison also had 19 points and 18 boards on 8/10 shooting but it was anything but a two-man show.

Captain Mitch Norton finished with 17 points and five assists with 3/4 shooting from beyond the arc while Smith-Milner delivered 11 points, James Batemon 10 points, Keandre Cook eight points, and Emmett Naar two points and three assists.

Adelaide came into the game without suspended imports Montrezl Harrell and Kendric Davis with captain DJ Vasiljevic injured with Isaac Humphries top-scoring with 16 points to go with six rebounds.

It was the perfect start back home for the Bullets with Tyrell Harrison enjoying his return and scoring the game's first six points.

Casey Prather then hit four straight points himself and Harrison scored again to give Brisbane the 12-2 advantage inside the first two and-a-half minutes.

Prather then took charge the rest of the first quarter and he would end up with 17 points on his own by quarter-time thanks to a perfect 7/7 shooting from the field including hitting two three-pointers.

Harrison also had 12 points on 5/5 shooting with the Bullets on top 34-24 following their highest-scoring first quarter of NBL25.

Keandre Cook started the second quarter with a three-point play for his first points of the game before Prather hit another three-pointer.

Harrison then converted a three-point play and Prather scored again to go to 22 points on 9/9 shooting, but he wouldn’t take another shot in the half and Adelaide were able to whittle down Brisbane's 13-point lead.

The Bullets were only leading 53-47 by the half-time break despite Prather and Harrison combining for 39 points and the team shooting 60 per cent from the floor.

Cook and Mitch Norton hit threes early in the second half and then when Prather made his 10th shot of the night to go to 24 points, the Bullets were back out to an 11-point lead five minutes gone in the third period.

Brisbane's lead got out to 15 later in the quarter and was still at 11 by three quarter-time before the Bullets produced an 11-0 scoring run midway through the fourth to see the advantage out to 18.

Tohi Smith-Milner hit a three ball late to get Brisbane to the triple figure mark and they scored the 19-point win in a confidence boosting performance.

The Bullets now head to Melbourne to take on the league-leading United on Sunday afternoon before returning home to host the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Thursday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

BRISBANE BULLETS 102 (Prather 33, Harrison 19, Norton 17)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 83 (Humphries 16, Dech 13, Cadee 13, Marshall 13)

BOX SCORE