Bullets keep winning on back of strong team showing

The Brisbane Bullets put together a third straight outstanding full team performance in the last six days and it's no coincidence it resulted in another tremendous 108-92 victory against the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

The Bullets had lost four straight matches ahead of playing Perth, Tasmania and South East Melbourne in the space of six days this time last week.

But on the back of the Round 5 pair of wins against the Wildcats in Perth and JackJumpers at home, the Bullets were back to Nissan Arena on Thursday night to open Indigenous Round in the NBL and were on top virtually from start to finish against the Phoenix.

There was so much to like from Brisbane in the way the group all performed as a unit, the way everyone was willing to sacrifice for the good of the team, and the way they all worked in the same direction to turn a 23-point loss to the same opponent two weeks ago into a 16-point win.

It was a game full of free-throws and the Bullets went 30/35 at the line to take full advantage of their trips going at 85 per cent while the Phoenix shot 27/42 at 64 per cent.

Brisbane also pulled down 22 offensive rebounds for 21 second chance points, only had 10 turnovers for the game of which four came in the opening minutes of the second half and every player who hit the court made a contribution.

The Bullets got 50 points off the bench on the way to scoring 108 for the highest score of the season with seven players scoring in double-figures, and 10 overall.

Josh Bannan came up huge in just his fourth NBL game with the rookie power forward finishing with 17 points and 11 rebounds while splitting the four spot with DJ Mitchell who had seven points and six boards.

Tyrell Harrison might have again been hamstrung by foul trouble to play under 17 minutes, but again was hugely effective with 14 points, eight rebounds and two blocks. Aron Baynes returned and was hugely influential in 15 minutes with 12 points and eight boards.

Rocco Zikarsky was the other part of the centre combination with four points.

While Nathan Sobey was another in foul trouble, he still scored 13 points in 18 minutes with Chris Smith adding 14 points and four rebounds on going 3/6 from behind the three-point line.

Isaac White also scored 13 points and had six assists with Mitch Norton contributing 10 points, nine assists and six rebounds, and Sam McDaniel four points, four boards, two assists and two steals.

Gary Browne top-scored for South East Melbourne with 25 points to go with eight rebounds, five assists and four steals with Mitch Creek adding 20 points.

The first quarter saw both teams live at the foul line with Brisbane attempting 14 free-throws and South East Melbourne 15 of them with Josh Bannan and Nathan Sobey picking up two early fouls for the Bullets, and Alan Williams three for the Phoenix.

The Bullets managed to go to 12/14 opposed to South East Melbourne's 8/15 and that made up for the 6/22 shooting. Combined with the one turnover helped the home team lead 26-23 by quarter-time helped by late three-pointers from Aron Baynes and Chris Smith.

The Bullets broke the game wide open to start the second quarter beginning with the first six points from Sam McDaniel, Tyrell Harrison and Smith to push the lead out to nine.

Soon after and Brisbane scored seven straight points with two buckets inside to Harrison and a triple from Sobey to see the lead grow to 14 points.

The Bullets would then close out the half with another run of scoring 10 straight points including a three-point knockdown to Mitch Norton. With Baynes and Harrison combining for 21 points sharing the centre spot, Brisbane went into half-time in control leading 59-42.

The third quarter didn’t quite start how the Bullets hoped with four early turnovers after having just one in the entire opening half. The Phoenix were able to go on a 14-5 start to the half on the back of that to close the deficit to eight.

However, Brisbane did well to steady things beginning with another triple to Smith and DJ Mitchell knocked down another from downtown soon after to push the lead back out to 12.

The Bullets were still on top by 12 at three quarter-time and then the margin never got closer than eight again in the final period.

Every time South East Melbourne threatened to make a charge, Brisbane found an answer and when the Bullets completed a 9-0 run the lead was out to 17 with Smith hitting his third triple of the game before Bannan and Norton made eight consecutive free-throws.

From there the Bullets closed it out to win by 16 points in impressive fashion on the way to recording the third consecutive victory.

The Bullets now head straight to Launceston to get ready to take on the Tasmania JackJumpers again now on Saturday evening.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL INDIGENOUS ROUND

BRISBANE BULLETS 108 (Bannan 17, Harrison 14, Smith 14)

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 92 (Browne 25, Creek 20, Williams 14)

BOX SCORE