Bullets dig deep for comeback win in Cairns

The Brisbane Bullets continue to show an ability to fightback and they were able to convert that into winning the first Sunshine Stoush of NBL25 in Cairns on Saturday night coming back from 12 points down for the 92-88 victory.

The Bullets arrived at the Cairns Convention Centre looking to bounce back from last Saturday's narrow home loss to the Tasmania JackJumpers, and they started the game strongly with James Batemon continuing his hot shooting form early.

However, by the second half the Taipans had opened up a double-figure lead and they were up by that margin having scored the opening three points of the fourth quarter.

From there, though, the Bullets took charge and would end up going on 8-0, 5-0 and 9-0 runs the rest of the game to end up securing the eventual four-point win and improve to 3-4 on the season having now won three of the past four matches.

The Bullets finished the game collecting 46 rebounds to 36 from the Taipans including 18 at the offensive end with Tyrell Harrison a massive reason for that.

The Brisbane centre finished with 20 rebounds including nine of those being offensive to go with his 14 points for the night.

James Batemon once again top-scored for the Bullets with 21 points along with six rebounds and three assists on the back of shooting 9/16 from the floor and 3/5 from three-point range.

Keandre Cook also had 18 points, three rebounds, three assists and two blocks with Josh Bannan contributing 16 points and six boards, captain Mitch Norton 12 points and two assists, and Casey Prather eight points and three rebounds.

Bullets coach Justin Schueller was impressed with how his team dug deep to come back to get the win.

"We knew we were coming into a battle even with how much they were dealing with injuries, and the way we responded when we got down was the most pleasing thing," he said.

"How we got down is the thing that we will look at and keep trying to work on, but the resolve in the group and the big moments we needed, guys stepped up.

"There was Norto's three in the corner, key stops and I'm really, really proud of those moments."

Norton put in a power of work all night defensively on Cairns superstar Rob Edwards who scored 27 points but on 10/22 shooting while Sam Waardenburg added 21 points and eight rebounds for the Taipans.

The Bullets made the perfect start with a dunk to Tyrell Harrison straight from the tip and then Keandre Cook made a nice turnaround jumper for the 4-0 start.

The Bullets then scored six straight points to be leading 13-7 leading to a Cairns timeout before Batemon finished off the opening quarter knocking down three bombs from outside the arc to give Brisbane the 23-18 quarter-time edge.

The lead continued to seesaw throughout the second quarter and shortly before half-time four straight Brisbane points had them leading by three once more, but then the Taipans scored the last six points to go into the break on top 44-41.

Batemon had 13 points in the first half for the Bullets with 3/4 three-point shooting but the rest of the team were just going at 11/33 overall and 1/9 from deep.

The Taipans did push out to a 12-point lead to start the second half but a 9-2 run late in the third period from the Bullets had them back within four before again Cairns answered to be leading 73-64 at three quarter-time.

That was then 76-64 when they scored the first three points of the final term but the Bullets started to mount a fightback with the next eight beginning with three balls to Mitch Norton and Batemon.

Cook then landed a three ball shortly after before Bannan blocked a three-point attempt for Cairns from Sam Waardenburg that led to another bucket to Cook in transition.

That made it a one-point ball game and eventually another Norton three ball started a run of nine straight points for the Bullets that saw them grab the lead, and stay there for good with the eventual four-point win.

The Bullets are back to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Thursday night to play host to Melbourne United in what will be captain Mitch Norton's 350th NBL game.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

BRISBANE BULLETS 92 (Batemon 21, Cook 18, Bannan 16)

CAIRNS TAIPANS 88 (Edwards 27, Waardenburg 21, Makoi 13)

BOX SCORE