Bullets celebrate in Adelaide on Christmas Eve

The Brisbane Bullets continued to get better the longer the Christmas Eve NBL fixture went against the Adelaide 36ers with Casey Prather delivering 36 points, Keandre Cook 24 and Isaac White 22 in the eventual 111-90 victory.

The Bullets arrived at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre on Christmas Eve looking to continue their recent impressive form but would have to do so without James Batemon who injured a hamstring in Friday night's home win against the Cairns Taipans.

However, White stepped up in his absence to make the first start of his NBL career and he ended up having 18 points by early in the second quarter on the way to the best night of his journey in the league.

Prather then caught fire in the second half, Cook was terrific, Tyrell Harrison stood tall and the Bullets outscored the 36ers 60 points to 42 in the second in front of 9457 Sixers fans to score the mighty impressive 21-point win.

The result means that the Bullets head into Christmas in fourth position with a 9-8 record and having now won five of the last six matches.

It was a tremendous all-round performance from the Bullets as they ended up shooting 50 per cent from the field as a team with 13/33 from three-point territory and 22/27 at the foul line.

Brisbane also had 45 rebounds to 38 from Adelaide including 13 offensive boards for 11 second chance points along with dishing out 17 assists and coughing up just the six turnovers.

Casey Prather continued his blistering form for the Bullets with another 36 points and five assists including shooting 7/12 from three-point range.

Keandre Cook was another dynamic scoring threat with 24 points, three rebounds, three assists and three steals with Isaac White having the best night of his 127-game NBL career with 22 points and four rebounds.

Tyrell Harrison was a powerful force inside once more with 14 points and 14 rebounds with Tohi Smith-Milner contributing six points and two assists, Josh Bannan five points and nine rebounds, Mitch Norton two points, five rebounds, five assists and two blocks, and Rocco Zikarsky two points, three boards and three blocks.

Kendric Davis finished with 32 points and eight assists for Adelaide with Montrezl Harrell adding 16 points and nine boards, and Jarell Martin 14 points and five rebounds.

After Adelaide scored the game's first four points, Brisbane scored seven of the next eight with Tyrell Harrison, Isaac White and Keandre Cook all getting on the board.

White then continued to make the most of his first career start with Brisbane's next seven points and then he also scored the team's last five of the opening quarter to see him put up 14 points already in the opening 10 minutes.

On the back of that, the Bullets were leading 24-23 before White added four more points quickly to start the second term before Casey Prather worked his way into the contest too.

He scored 10 points for the rest of the half with the Bullets managing to build a lead as big as six points before going into the break on top 51-48 with White's 18 points and 10 apiece from Prather and Cook as Brisbane attempted nine extra field goals than Adelaide.

Prather then took over the game in the third quarter with a couple of early threes in the second half and he ended up producing 15 points in the term and Brisbane outscored Adelaide 27 points to 22 with the lead growing to as much as 11.

The Bullets were only just getting started and delivered a dominant fourth term with 33 points to 20 to head into Christmas in style with the eventual 21-point victory.

The Bullets will now return to Brisbane and prepare to host the league-leading Illawarra Hawks on Friday night in their first game after Christmas.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

BRISBANE BULLETS 111 (Prather 36, Cook 24, White 22)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 90 (Davis 32, Harrell 16, Martin 14)

BOX SCORE