Bullets roster bolstered ahead of NBL Blitz

The Brisbane Bullets travelled to Darwin today ahead of their first game of the NBL Blitz on Sunday 18 September.

Across the next week, the team will take on the New Zealand Breakers, Cairns Taipans and Melbourne United in three pre-season games prior to NBL23 tip-off on 2 October.

Bullets fans will get their first opportunity to see Tyler Johnson and Aron Baynes on court for Brisbane, while Nathan Sobey is also looking set to play some minutes as he recovers from injury. While there may be some minutes restrictions across the squad, it will be exciting to see majority of the Bullets roster on court.

Tyrell Harrison travelled to Darwin, but will remain out of the line-up due to injury. Harrison will be replaced by nominated replacement player, Rasmus Bach.

Following their final training in Brisbane before travelling to the Blitz, both Sobey and Johnson chatted to Bullets Media to discuss the pre-season and how the team is coming together ahead of NBL23.

Sobey also spoke about his journey back onto the court following an injury midway through NBL22.

“Long journey from that last game, but I’m excited to be back on the floor. It’s going to take some time to get fully back into it, but just excited to be doing little bits at the moment,” Sobey said.

“I’m super excited to not only be training, but to play some games will be even better no matter how many minutes. It will be great to be out there with the fellas on the road, getting to know some people on a different level.

“It’s going to be a little different for us, we saw the games in Melbourne and they were really good. Now we’ve got some players that haven’t played in a while and we’re trying to get back into the groove including myself, Baynesy and Tyler. Us three or four with Tyrell when he comes back, working on trying to get us all on the same page is important, because what they’ve been building this whole pre-season has been great.”

“We’re just excited to get on the floor, put the colours on and play again,” Sobey added.

Tyler Johnson has spent one month in Brisbane now with the Bullets and brings alot of talent and experience to the group. 

“Feels good, getting more and more comfortable. Obviously we’re looking forward to being able to get everybody healthy and out on the court, but as of right now I’m really optimistic about the way things are going.” Johnson said.

“We’re still in the pre-season and obviously we want to win any time you get on court, but right now it’s about trying to build cohesion and then at the same time ease some guys back into playing who weren’t down there [in Melbourne] this last time.”

“We have a lot of pieces here and you don’t get to play in a lot of season’s where you have the pieces where you can go and compete for something.”

“Right now we’re just trying to enjoy the moment and take advantage of the opportunity we have in front of us,” Johnson added.

NBL BLITZ SCHEDULE

Game 1

Brisbane Bullets vs New Zealand Breakers

Sunday, September 18 at 5:30 pm AEST

Game 2

Brisbane Bullets vs Cairns Taipans

Tuesday, September 20 at 8 pm AEST

Game 3

Brisbane Bullets vs Melbourne United

Friday, September 23 at 8 pm AEST

Watch all games from the Blitz, live on Kayo Freebies.

MEMBERS PRE-SALE TICKETS NOW ON SALE. TICKETS GO ON SALE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AT 4PM, MONDAY 19 SEPTEMBER.