Hungry Bullets aim for 40-minute performance

Staying hungry and focused on producing a 40-minute performance has been the focus for the Brisbane Bullets this week with coach Justin Schueller emphasising the positives as his team aims for that first win of NBL25.

It's easy for two things to happen when you lose the first three games of any season and that's to become desperate to not make it four in-a-row and to focus on the negatives from the games you've lost so far.

Aware of that, Schueller has made it a real focus this week leading into Saturday night's match up in Melbourne with the South East Melbourne Phoenix to make sure the Bullets are instead hungry to find their best basketball for 40 minutes, and to show them the good they've been doing.

There has been plenty of that in the first three games. The performance in Wollongong against the Illawarra Hawks was largely positive especially considering it was without Josh Bannan and Sam McDaniel with Deng Adel, Mitch Norton and James Batemon getting hurt during the game.

Then even though the starts against New Zealand and Sydney were far from ideal, the Bullets dominated down the stretch in both going on an 18-2 run against the Breakers, and scoring the game's last 16 points against the Kings.

So there has been signs of how dominant the Bullets can be, the key is now doing it for 40 minutes and staying hungry and not getting desperate according to Schueller.

"I think the first thing for us is that we know we're not a finished product, and are locking in on getting better every day," Schueller said.

"We've spoken about not being desperate because that would mean you are having reactions that aren’t productive as opposed to being hungry which is the source of just wanting to be better, and having that strong desire to improve.

"That's kind of where we started this week and what's been a product of that has been a consistency with how we've trained from having that approach.

"Now we can finally get to defining roles as best as we have been trying to do from the very start. Initially each week we were looking at different things, but now we've been able to settle in on that and that clarity is helping us see what we look like on every possession."

The other thing that has Schueller feeling good about the Bullets this week heading into Saturday night's match up in Melbourne against the Phoenix is that he now has a full team at his disposal aside from McDaniel who is out for the season.

Last week coming out of the game against the Hawks, Norton, Batemon and Adel were just fighting to prove their fitness, and Bannan was preparing for his first game back, but there's greater stability now this week with a full week to prepare to play South East Melbourne.

"We were plugging holes there if we're honest for a fair while and the hardest thing that I probably didn’t realise at the time was us figuring out how to integrate Sam McDaniel back in, and then losing him for the season," Schueller added.

"Then we focused on how to integrate Josh Bannan, but now we're in spot where we can settle every one's role and what that's done is give us some stability on how we want to play again.

"Our best that we've shown is definitely good enough to be at the top of the league, but our worst has been bad enough to be at the bottom. So we're trying to bridge that gap and be more consistent quarter to quarter, and that's what we're expecting to see this week."

One big take away Schueller and his coaching staff made from the first three weeks was that they might have been focusing too much on what the Bullets had been doing wrong, and not highlighting what they were doing well.

That has changed this week and with the Bullets players seeing what they've been doing right and now trying to replicate that across all 40 minutes this Saturday night, Schueller is hoping it pays off to deliver a first win of NBL25.

"One of the reflections I had this week was that I wasn’t emphasising the positives enough in what we were doing," Schueller said.

"We were reflecting too much on the negative parts and not enough on the positives we were doing, and one of things that has been consistent is that we've been letting the previous moment effect what happens next.

"We've spent a lot of time on that this week as well and we are getting the understanding of what's done is done, and moving onto what the next play is.

"Once we do that at a consistent base we'll be fine and even against the Kings in the first quarter, we got back into the game until the last minute and-a-half.

"That's the areas we have to get better at and make sure if a shot misses or goes down on us, it can't influence our next possession and we're seeing good signs that we are improving in that area."