Bullets focused on regaining identity after Kings defeat

The Brisbane Bullets showed glimpses of potential during their titanic battle against the ladder-leading Sydney Kings on Wednesday evening. But the hosts were ultimately left to rue what could’ve been.

Brisbane shot the ball more than their opponents, but they couldn’t get the ball to drop as they finished with 36 per cent accuracy from the field. Meanwhile, the Kings shot at more than 55 per cent from the field, and this proved to be the difference as the Bullets fell 67-116.

Playing in front of a pumping crowd at Nissan Arena, the Bullets more than held their own during a seesawing first quarter. Star guard Nathan Sobey got the Bullets’ night underway with a fade-away jumper inside the opening minute.

DJ Mitchell then sent the home crowd into a frenzy with four quick points, as Brisbane raced out to an early lead. But Brisbane’s advantage was short lived; they wouldn’t regain control of the contest throughout the remainder of this Round 15 clash.

Sydney shifted into second gear during the second period, as they continued their scoring onslaught with 35 points in the quarter. The Bullets were held to just 15 points in the third, and 12 in the final period, while the Kings reaped the rewards from their unselfish ball movement.

Veteran guard Jason Cadee insists the Bullets need to figure out their identity as a club, as they reflect om “who we are and what we are.”

“Sometimes I ask myself ‘how did we get here?’ There’s been a lot that’s gone on,” Cadee told reporters after Wednesday’s game.

“You’re trying to find positives and then you come in and you’re busting you’re a** at training at you’re trying to get after it.

“I know to speak from my own point of view, I’m trying to seek answers and I’m trying to help fix things.

“It just gets to one point in the game where it goes from being a two, three point game (where) we’re right amongst it, (then) it goes to 15 in the space of a minute, two minutes. Now you’re trying to claw your way back.

“We’re not good enough at the moment to be able to give up leads like that and find our way back in it.

“We’ve had our first three trainings with our full team this week, or the course of the last seven days, and we’re trying to find who we are and what we are, and right now we have no idea.

“It’s hard because you want people to love coming to watch you play and I care about this place and this city that I play in so it’s deflating, it’s disappointing.

“We’ve got to find reasons… we owe people who show up, we owe them a better performance than tonight. How do we get it? We’ve got to keep working hard.”

After a thrilling first quarter, the Sydney Kings outscored the Bullets 92-46 en route to an emphatic win.

Nathan Sobey led the team with 14 points on the night, as well as five boards and three assists, but was unable to lead any kind of resurgence from the hosts.

Speaking after the match, Hostplus Head Coach Greg Vanderjagt said the team needs to learn how to better for “longer stretches of basketball”, as they look to “repay the faith” shown by supporters.

“There’s no hiding from it, you lose by 49 and you get another really good crowd over 4,000… there’s good things happening around the club and we’ve got to repay the faith at some point in time by putting in a 40 minute performance,” Vanderjagt said.

“Of course it hurts. Anytime you lose it hurts. To lose by 49, hurts a lot.

“The reality is we have to turn it around and we play Melbourne on Saturday back here at home. They’re coming on the back of an NZ trip to Christchurch.

“We have to come back on Saturday, we get to practice on Friday and prepare for that game.

“To take away how we played in the first quarter and translate that to longer stretches of basketball is what we need to do.”

The Brisbane Bullets are back at home again this Saturday, as they take on Melbourne United.

HUNGRY JACK’S NBL ROUND 15

BRISBANE BULLETS (Sobey 14, Johnson 13, Baynes 7)

SYDNEY KINGS (Cooks 20, Soares 20, Walton Jr 18)

BOX SCORE