Norton focuses on Bullets improvement after near miss

Mitch Norton was denied one of the highlights of his 330-game NBL career by the splittest of seconds on Sunday but in typical fashion the two-time champion is only focused on how the Brisbane Bullets can keep improving.

When you've experienced as much as you have in an NBL career like Norton which started back in his hometown of Townsville in 2011, and has now spanned 330 appearances and included two championships, it's hard to keep having firsts or career highlights.
But that chance presented for Norto in Sunday's Sunshine Stoush at Nissan Arena where he was already having his season-best scoring night with the Bullets, hitting three three-pointers on his way to 13 points.

Then the ball was in his hands for the last shot of the game. The Bullets had done a tremendous job to fight back from a 22-point deficit against the Cairns Taipans in the third quarter to find themselves just a point down with time expiring.

Brisbane did well to get a stop up one end, Tyrell Harrison grabbed the defensive rebound and handed off to captain Nathan Sobey with just over five seconds on the clock.
Sobey got up the floor quickly, took the ball to the rack and then dished it out to Norton who was waiting at the three-point line. Norton knocked down what would have been his fourth three of the game and what would have won the game for the Bullets.

However, time had expired ever so slightly before the ball left Norton's hands denying him the chance of a walk off game winner. In typical fashion, he was philosophical about it afterwards.

"Those things obviously happen but I think it was the right play," Norton said.
"Sobes attracted a lot of attention, as he does, and made the right read but another split second and the game's ours. But there's a lot of things that happened before that and determine the outcome of the game.

"Hopefully I do get another chance at that but I just want to win games. I don’t care if I'm taking the last shot or am sitting on the bench supporting someone that's going to knock it down.
"I think everyone in this club believes that we are a good squad and we haven’t quite got the results, but we're building and I believe you're only as good as your record. Until we can put four quarters together and I think we have the ability to do that, and it's going to turn really soon."

The Bullets are now in the middle of a run of three consecutive Sunday games with full weeks in between to prepare for each one, and Norton couldn't fault how well prepared the coaching staff had the team last week. Coming off a disappointing loss in Melbourne to the league-leading United, the Bullets hosted the Taipans on Sunday but it was anything but a good start conceding the 35 points in the opening quarter to the Snakes. However, Brisbane showed impressive and encouraging second half fight to have a chance to win the game at the death, and Norton now hopes they can build on that in Adelaide on Christmas Eve.

"It was a long week for us to prepare and I think we did a great job of that, however our execution in the first half wasn’t good enough of our game plan," Norton said.
"That's on us as players because the coaches do a hell of a job of watching video and putting a game plan together that can be successful.
"We didn’t execute it but the good thing is the fight and the character of this squad to come back in the second half. That's what I'm proud but at the same time we lost the basketball game so there's areas we can focus on to improve. That's what we're going to do."

The Bullets now are preparing to head to Adelaide to take on a new-look 36ers this Sunday afternoon on Christmas Eve.
While there's the bonus that the team will be back in Brisbane in time for Christmas Day, the focus right now is solely on not allowing the festive season interrupt their preparations to look for an eighth win of the season for the ideal Christmas present before the flight home.

"Every game's super important in this league and we've dropped a couple, and get to go on the road now. We're pretty lucky as a club with our run over the Christmas and New Year period so we need to take care of our bodies this week, and get ready for three big games coming up," Norton said.
"We're lucky as a club here that we do get to spend Christmas with our families and our fixture for us is pretty friendly in terms of that over this period. It is a dangerous period too, the festive season, and people can get swept up with Christmas parties and all that stuff, but we've got to focus on who we are."

The team will return to Nissan Arena to face the Breakers on Wednesday 27th December.