McDaniel "always keen to rip in"

 Sam McDaniel embraced perhaps the two biggest defensive assignments in the NBL in the Round 5 double-header and proved to be as instrumental as any Brisbane Bullets player in the twin victories.

McDaniel has joined the Bullets for the first time in NBL24 with a reputation well earned already of being a tremendous team player who quite simply makes whatever group he is part of better through his presence.

That's why over his 125-game NBL career already, McDaniel was a crucial piece in Melbourne United winning a championship in 2021 and he played a key role in the Tasmania JackJumpers reaching the Championship Series in 2022.

He then also starred in the Hobart Chargers winning the NBL1 South championship in 2022 where he was Grand Final MVP and this past season he was the league's Best Defensive Player leading into his first season with the Bullets.

Now eight games into his career at the Brisbane Bullets this season and McDaniel has wasted no time showing what a crucial part of the team he is going to be simply because of how much he contributes in every area.

McDaniel brings leadership, toughness, versatility and an unselfishness where he's always willing to do whatever is best for his team, and that becomes infectious for his teammates and you can already clearly see the impact he's had.

Never has that been more evident than the two games in Round 5 for the Bullets were McDaniel was given what could well be the two biggest defensive assignments at least in terms of perimeter players in the league – Perth's Bryce Cotton and Tasmania's Milton Doyle.

What McDaniel did was remarkable in helping to limit Cotton to 10 points on 3/19 shooting Friday's win in Perth and then to back it up to restrict Doyle to seven points on 3/10 shooting in Sunday's victory against Tasmania at Nissan Arena.

If you look at the raw numbers of what McDaniel is producing this season with 7.8 points and 4.9 rebounds, it doesn't tell the whole story of what everyone inside the Bullets knows and that he is hugely influential in everything they do.

Hostplus Brisbane Bullets Head Coach Justin Schueller is anything but surprised by what McDaniel is doing because that's why he signed him and the pair worked closely together in the championship season at Melbourne United.

For McDaniel, he was proud that he was able to contribute so strongly to the wins against the Wildcats and JackJumpers, but even more so for his teammates and coaching staff who all pulled together so impressively.

"I'm super proud and I pride myself on defence, but I'm super proud of the whole team and the club really," McDaniel said.

"We talked about from the start about keeping it even keel and not getting too high and too low, and both these games the whole team did a great job of doing that whether that was the guys on the bench, the coaches and the guys on the floor."

Things move quickly and as good as last weekend was for McDaniel and the Bullets, there's little time to enjoy it with a short turnaround to opening Indigenous Round this Thursday night back at Nissan Arena against the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

McDaniel is looking forward to getting out there to attempt to continue his personal form and the winning run of the Bullets while taking some of the lessons from the loss to the Phoenix less than two weeks ago in Melbourne.

"I'm always keen to rip in and especially in front of the home crowd. They were electric for us in this game and I think they helped carry us through the game, and I'm looking forward to Thursday to do it all again," he said.

"I'll just try to do the same thing as always and obviously we'll have a scout in place, and I'll do my best as will all the team to follow that plan. We'll try to be physical and like we did this weekend, play the defence we want to.

"We'll definitely take little pieces from that game last time we played them and little lessons, and try to be better this time around."

Another supremely impressive aspect of the wins last weekend from Brisbane was the fact that they came in the absence of starting centre Aron Baynes and point guard Shannon Scott.

Baynes will now return for this round's double beginning against the Phoenix on Thursday and then on the road to the Tasmania JackJumpers on Saturday in Launceston, and McDaniel is looking forward to having the big man back.

"We'll take a big lift from having one of our leaders back. Whatever he contributes is a bonus and he's been great leading the guys off the court at the moment, and we'll continue to look to him for leadership for sure," McDaniel said.

"We've been able to learn to play through adversity with that next man up mentality and with guys being put in positions they're not used to being in, and kind of figuring it out on the fly. That only equips us to kind of be more versatile as a group going forward."