Preview: NBL24 Round 13 v SE Melbourne Phoenix at Nissan Arena

The race for a top six position in the NBL is heating up and the Brisbane Bullets face one team they are trying to unseat in the last game of 2023 when hosting the South East Melbourne Phoenix at Nissan Arena.

There's plenty of reasons why Saturday night's match up at Nissan Arena is a fascinating one including the Bullets unveiling new signing and three-time NBL champion Casey Prather who arrived on Wednesday and will suit up to play against the Phoenix.

The game is also the last that the Bullets will play of 2023 who will be aiming to close out the year on a winning note to remain right in the hunt for a play-in position with nine games to go of the season following Saturday night.

Brisbane comes into the game having now lost the past four matches but with a 7-11 record, they remain hot on the heels of the Cairns Taipans who sit in sixth position so it remains a tight race between a host of teams for those play-in spots.

The Bullets come up against a Phoenix team currently sitting in fifth position with a 9-9 record and they arrive in Brisbane fresh off a morale boosting Christmas Day victory in Hobart against the Tasmania JackJumpers.

Just to add to the occasion of Saturday night's game, not only will Prather be making his debut for the Bullets but Phoenix captain Mitch Creek will return from a knee injury and the two superstar forwards will renew their long-standing NBL rivalry.

It will be the third and final time the two teams have played one another this season with a win apiece so far. The Phoenix won 96-73 in Melbourne back on October 21 but the Bullets hit back with the 108-92 also at Nissan Arena back on November 2.

For Hostplus Brisbane Bullets Head Coach Justin Schueller, while he was frustrated following Wednesday's 10-point home loss to the New Zealand Breakers, he knows his team isn’t that far away if they can just tidy up some areas.

That's exactly what he hopes to see now on Saturday night against South East Melbourne.

"The frustration with our group is that we know we're right there," Schueller said.

"We're in these positions where we aren’t getting the result or reward on the win, but we know every step we take we are getting closer and closer to really cracking that thing.

"Now it's at the time where we've got to make it happen too otherwise we've let this year slip. That's where we just go back to work, continue to move forward, do the things that we know what winning will look like and have more consistency with it.

"If we can remove those two, three-minute patches we know we're right there and that's our focus as we move forward to South East."

The biggest positive out of Wednesday's loss to the Breakers were the performances of Brisbane rookies Josh Bannan and Rocco Zikarsky.

As a 17-year-old Next Star, Zikarsky's impact was remarkable as a rim protector, shot influencer and then strong presence around the offensive basket while Bannan battled feverishly for 14 points and seven rebounds.

Those sort of performances are exactly why Schueller wants Zikarsky and Bannan to be key parts of everything the Bullets do moving forward.

"That's the future of our club and we've made an investment in Banno for three years and we know Roc is with us for at least two," Schueller said.

"It's exciting when that youth and the level of their talent is being able to be shown, and I think people are only going to continue to see more and more of that.

"I think sometimes people are shocked with how well they're going, but we're definitely not and we know what we have at our disposal. We're excited for the careers that they are going to have and the sky's the limit for both those guys."

While there were positives as there has been over each of the past four games Brisbane has lost, there has been some on-going trends that continue to creep in and that's included starting games slowly, and coming out timidly after half-time.

That was a significant reason for Wednesday's loss and it takes so much energy to bring yourself back into the game in the NBL that it makes it difficult to go on with the job.

Bannan might be in his first season in the NBL, but he is showing great maturity and leadership, and when he talked after that loss and looking ahead to the clash with the Phoenix, it was with a sense of urgency about how the Bullets have to sort out those areas that are letting them down.

"It's been a bit of a theme for us where the start of third quarters have been sloppy, like really sloppy," Bannan said.

"We have been unable to come out of half-time and bring a lot of energy, and I think there's been some times where as a group we don’t have a great recognition of the importance of every moment, and that moment in time of games.

"Right now we've fallen to a spot where we're 7-11 with 10 games to go and we're going to have to fight a real uphill battle. That's the thing about appreciating the importance of every minute in every game because we need to be a playoff team. That has to happen and that has to happen soon."

GAME INFO

Who: Brisbane Bullets vs South East Melbourne Phoenix

Tip off: 7:00pm (AEST), Saturday 30 December, 2023

Where: Nissan Arena

Tickets: Available Here

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