On-fire Sobey targets Bullets grabbing momentum

Brisbane Bullets captain Nathan Sobey is in a rich vein of form but ultimately all he cares about is being part of a winning team and that's why he liked seeing so many teammates stepping up in the win over the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

Sobey is in the middle of an outstanding NBL24 season averaging 20.0 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists a game to have him right in MVP and All-First Team conversations.

Over the past four games his scoring numbers have shot through the roof too with him putting up 27.8 points over that stretch, but the difference from his team as a whole against the Phoenix was stark.

Going back to Christmas Eve and Sobey produced a career-best scoring performance putting up 36 points against the Adelaide 36ers. However, the end result was a seven-point defeat for the Bullets.

He missed matching that 252-game career high on Saturday night with 35 points against South East Melbourne, but he was outstanding in his scoring, leadership and team play, and the result of his Bullets teammates were along for the ride.

This time around you had Josh Bannan producing 17 points and six rebounds, Mitch Norton 12 points and three assists with some huge shots late, Sam McDaniel 14 points and four rebounds with tremendous defence, and Shannon Scott four points and seven assists.

Aron Baynes was massive with the team plus-16 in his 12 minutes while Tyrell Harrison pulled down eight rebounds. It was that team contribution that led to the ultimate 95-83 victory.

That improves the Bullets to an 8-11 record on the season to be knocking on the door of a play-in position. What Sobey liked was Brisbane getting some reward for the effort they've been putting in.

"We've been putting in the work and it hasn’t been paying off, and we thought we'd been doing a great job of pounding the rock and really sticking with it and getting great looks," Sobey said.

"It just wasn’t going our way but this game we really got after it, and executed when we needed to.

"It's been a frustrating few weeks obviously not getting the outcomes that we thought we were putting in the work to get, but being able to get a couple of games under our belt now and really get playing with some momentum means we're in some great stead moving forward."

Sobey might have only played 12 games alongside rookie power forward Josh Bannan so far, but he's quickly becoming one of his favourite teammates just for how hard he plays, and how he always fights to the death for his team.

"I love playing with Banno. He's one of those guys who does all the little things and really gets after it, and you know what you're going to get from him," Sobey said.

"He really sticks to what he's good at and the whole group loves having him on their team, but he's going to continue to grow and get better and better. He's going to be a great player."

Another teammate that Sobey has played a lot longer with not only this season and-a-half with the Bullets but also with the Australian Boomers including at the Tokyo Olympic Games is Baynes.

Sobey enjoyed seeing the huge impact he had on the win on Saturday night in just 12 minutes of court time, but he's also seen up close what influence he has no matter what he's doing on the floor on game nights.

"I think Baynesy was great for us and his effectiveness across the board, he played really well," he said.

"He continues to do that well for us whether he is scoring or not, he continues to put people in the right areas and then obviously his leadership and talk with the other guys that play in that spot as well, and helping them out as much as he can.

"This game on court shows a little bit more of what impact he has, but he always has a huge impact on this group."

What Sobey knows as well as anybody is that the win against the Phoenix won't count for much if they can't back it up this coming Sunday on the road to the defending champion Sydney Kings.

"We'll take the win, look at it, look what we did well and look at what we need to do better again, and we can't really ride on it too high or else we'll get caught up in the same situation," Sobey said.

"We have to learn what we can from it and find what we did well, find what we need to do better and continue to build moving forward."