Cook hits 33 and Bullets make it three straight

The Brisbane Bullets dug deep from a 15-point deficit early in the second half to take charge the rest of the way outscoring the South East Melbourne Phoenix 68 points to 49 to claim the 116-108 victory.

The Bullets were back at Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Thursday night on the back of two standout wins against the Adelaide 36ers and Melbourne United, but the Phoenix also arrived in a good vein of form.

South East Melbourne then built a 15-point lead by early in the third quarter, but the Bullets kept on wanting to play an attacking and high-tempo offensive style. It paid dividends as they scored 68 points the rest of the night on the way to the eight-point win.

It makes it three straight wins as the Bullets improve to 7-7 on the season with the 116 points backing up scoring 102 and 122 in the wins in Round 11 while shooting again at 58 per cent from the field with 13/28 from three-point land and 19/24 from the foul line.

There were plenty of standout performers once more in the win with Keandre Cook having the best performance of his NBL career with 33 points, five rebounds, four assists and two steals on 9/14 shooting from the field and 5/8 from downtown.

Tyrell Harrison continued his dominant form with 23 points and 12 rebounds on 10/13 shooting with James Batemon adding 16 points and three assists, and Casey Prather 16 points and six rebounds.

Isaac White also scored a season-best 13 points with 2/2 from deep while Tohi Smith-Milner contributed eight points, four boards, three assists and three steals, and captain Mitch Norton seven points and three steals.

Matt Hurt top-scored for South East Melbourne with 27 points while former Bullets captain Nathan Sobey added 25 points, Angus Glover 20 and Owen Foxwell 20.

Brisbane were coming into the game on a high after last week's wins against Adelaide and Melbourne, and started strongly with the first five points through James Batemon and Tyrell Harrison, and then Batemon pushing that to 7-2.

South East Melbourne did work on top from there including 11 quick points from Nathan Sobey, but Brisbane were back level after Isaac White hit a three to celebrate his hair cut and Harrison and Batemon scored again.

The Phoenix finished the first period well to go into quarter-time leading 34-26 but the Bullets started the second term well and with Harrison scoring seven of their 13 points, they closed the gap to four.

South East Melbourne, though, was able to maintain their edge to be leading 59-48 by half-time and then extend that lead to 15 to start the second half, but the Bullets were just warming up.

The Bullets scored the game's next 10 points including three-pointers to Casey Prather and Mitch Norton before Prather started another 7-0 run that suddenly saw the home team back level with the Phoenix.

Just as South East Melbourne managed to build another eight-point lead, Brisbane again answered and when Tohi Smith-Milner completed a steal and breakaway finish, the Bullets were even leading.

That didn’t last too long with the Phoenix up by a point at three quarter-time but when the Bullets hit the front again on three-point daggers from Keandre Cook and Prather, this time they would never look back.

Smith-Milner completed the and-one on a circus shot finish before Cook hit his fourth three ball to make it a six-point ball game, and then White made the technical free-throw to make it seven.

White then hit a corner three to make it 10 and by the time Cook made it five threes for the game, the Bullets' lead grew to 12 and they wouldn’t look back from there completing the eight-point victory.

The Bullets continue their run of back-to-back weekends now heading to Sydney to take on the Kings on Sunday afternoon to wrap up Round 12 in the NBL.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

BRISBANE BULLETS 116 (Cook 33, Harrison 23, Batemon 16)

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 108 (Hurt 27, Sobey 25, Glover 20, Foxwell 20)

BOX SCORE