Mighty Max won't waste Bullets opportunity

Max Mackinnon delivered a smooth 31 points with six three-pointers, but his 12 rebounds impressed coach Will Weaver even more and it's doing things to help the Brisbane Bullets win that the rookie sensation is focusing on too.

Mackinnon still remembers going to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre to watch the Bullets play and he has fond memories of celebrating a birthday watching his current captain Mitch Norton play for the Perth Wildcats.

But his first chance to play there came on Friday night and it's a moment he'll never forget with a match-winning display from the 22-year-old who did play five games as a development player with the Bullets before his college career at Elon University, the University of Portland and finally, Louisiana State University.

He has returned to his hometown team for NBL26 and put up 31 points with 6/8 three-point shooting on Friday night in the win against the Illawarra Hawks while also having 12 rebounds.

It would have been enjoyable to play well anywhere, but it did have that extra sense of meaning to do it at home for Mackinnon.

"It's special for sure having my high school mates there and going up to them after the game is pretty cool," Mackinnon said.

"Just being where my feet are is something that I'm grateful for having this opportunity here and I'm not going to waste it."

While Weaver will certainly take the 31 points that Mackinnon scored in the win over the Hawks, it was his effort to knuckle down defensively and to rebound that impressed him even more.

"Rebounding, there's just not a lot of humans on earth that can bring that approach to the boards and we had our hands full because Illawarra is a good basketball team despite being 0-2 with a lot of weapons," Weaver said.

"So it took sometimes three, four guys to box out (Davo) Hickey and (Johny) Narkle and Sam (Froling), and those guys, and Max came in screaming and got the rebounds, and that helped us create some pace out of those situations which really helps us."

The biggest area of growth that Weaver saw from Mackinnon from Tuesday's win over the New Zealand Breakers to Friday's victory against Illawarra was how locked in he was defensively.

While the offensive output difference was significant with Mackinnon going from nine points on 3/5 shooting to 31 on 11/16 was stark, it was his ability to play strong defence and get in the passing lanes that most stood out to his coach.

"It was a big growth I thought from game one to game two with him just in terms of his stance, and the way that he was able to read what was coming his way," Weaver said.

"I thought he anticipated very well and I'm gonna go and watch the game and find nine examples where he didn’t, and we'll watch them together on Sunday.

That's why he'll get better because he's relentlessly asking for feedback and wants to be coached hard, and wants the standard to be high on that end of the floor.

"Similarly about his shooting and his playmaking, and that's a big part of why he's going to go where he's going to go."

Mackinnon himself knows that he'll have good and bad shooting night, and obviously enjoys putting the ball in the hole, but he knows it's just as important to focus in on things that he can control more than the bounce of a ball like his defence and effort areas with rebounding.

That's why he'll continue to want coach Weaver to challenge him to keep on getting better defensively and he wants to only keep on improving.

"I've still got to work on it and just keep competing, and it's a difference going from college to guarding kids that are talented," Mackinnon said.

"Here, they've got families to feed so it's a different physicality and guys are smarter and stuff, but I just have to keep watching the film and asking questions, and it'll all figure itself out."

Mackinnon also likes that with this Bullets team they aren’t reliant on any one player to be a match winner and in any given game, it can be any number of players playing that role.

In the season-opener against New Zealand it was Arnas Velička with 23 points and 14 assists with five three-pointers, and then against Illawarra it was Mackinnon with the 31 points, 12 rebounds and six triples.

But next time it could very well be anyone out of Tyrell Harrison, Jacob Holt, Nate Hinton, Jaylin Williams, Mitch Norton, Lat Mayen or Harry Rouhliadeff, or indeed Sam McDaniel and Taine Murray once they return.

That's the best thing for Mackinnon about this Bullets squad of NBL27 with the depth they have and how all any of them care about is team success.

"I'm just grateful that it's a good group of guys and I think any guy on any given night can do that," Mackinnon said.

"Everyone can impact and it was me tonight, but anyone on our roster can make impact, and it's a good group to be on, but we're still building and we're going to keep on stacking.

"I've gotta earn it and we have some guys injured who are going to come in and impact, but we're deep and have a good roster.

"We're gonna keep building but any guy can make impact and me it was tonight, but against Sydney when we play them anyone can have impact. It's a cool experience to play back at home though."