Prather, Bannan fight valiantly for Bullets

Casey Prather and Josh Bannan fought valiantly but ultimately the odds were stacked against the Brisbane Bullets at home on Wednesday night with the Perth Wildcats winning 112-85.

For a lot of Saturday night the Bullets were on track for what would have been a crucial win in Gippsland against the South East Melbourne, but that 19-point loss in the finish carried over into Wednesday at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

With Tyrell Harrison still sidelined, the Bullets lost Rocco Zikarsky, Deng Adel and Emmett Naar following that game leaving the cupboard a little bare ahead of hosting the on-fire Wildcats.

Brisbane fought hard led by Prather and Bannan, but when the Wildcats hit their first eight three-point attempts they started to pull away and ended up scoring the 27-point victory with the Bullets now sitting with a 10-13 record and a short turnaround to Friday night.

Prather worked tirelessly against the team he won two championships with to start his NBL career with another 32 points and 11 rebounds while knocking down 6/11 from three-point range.

Bannan powered through a knee he hurt in Traralgon on Saturday to finish with 20 points and 11 rebounds while playing 32 minutes with Josh Adams scoring 11 points to go with three assists and getting through 28 minutes.

Tohi Smith-Milner added seven points and four rebounds, Isaac White six points and two assists, Keandre Cook five points, five assists, three rebounds and two steals, and captain Mitch Norton four points and three assists.

Bryce Cotton finished with 36 points with 5/7 three-point shooting for Perth with Keanu Pinder contributing 19 points and six rebounds, and Dylan Windler 16 points, six rebounds, three steals and three blocks.

Josh Bannan displayed great toughness and courage just to be playing after hurting his knee on Saturday night. He helped the Bullets to a strong start with the team's first eight points before Casey Prather chimed in with the 15-9 start.

Brisbane did end up leading by as much as eight points in the opening stanza but by quarter-time the Wildcats had tied scores up at 27-27.

Prather and Bannan had combined for 21 of those 27 Brisbane points but the Wildcats took control in the second quarter beginning with the first 12 points including a couple of threes to Bryce Cotton.

Perth ended up going on a 29-4 run to start the quarter with the lead for the visitors growing to 29 points before the Bullets did score eight consecutive points including Tohi Smith-Milner knocking down a three ball.

The 'Cats were still leading 65-42 at the half but the Bullets did come out full of fight to open the second half despite being short on manpower and down 20-plus.

Bannan was once again the fire starter for Brisbane before Prather knocked down a three-pointer to begin a 12-0 run for the home team and suddenly the Bullets had got it back to an 11-point game.

Perth continued to have the answers, though, and pushed its lead back out to 19 points by three quarter-time and despite three more triples to Prather in the final period, the Wildcats still ended up winning by 27.

The Bullets now have the short turnaround once again ahead of hosting Queensland rivals the Cairns Taipans on Friday night back at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

It's then straight on to Wollongong to play the league-leading Illawarra Hawks on Monday night for the Bullets.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

BRISBANE BULLETS 85 (Prather 32, Bannan 20, Adams 11)

PERTH WILDCATS 112 (Cotton 36, Pinder 19, Windler 16)

BOX SCORE