Preview: NBL24 Round 5 v Tasmania JackJumpers at Nissan Arena

Coming off the high of Friday night's win in Perth, the Brisbane Bullets are back home for the first time in two weeks to play host to the Tasmania JackJumpers on Sunday looking to keep the momentum going.

Last time the Bullets played at Nissan Arena was back on October 13 against the Sydney Kings and now the return home on Sunday is all set up for a fascinating match up against Tasmania with both teams playing on Friday night.

The JackJumpers were first up at home in Hobart to Melbourne United where they suffered a 90-82 defeat against the league-leaders before the Bullets took on the Wildcats at RAC Arena, and snapped a four-game losing run in style with the 84-79 victory.

There was plenty to like from the performance by the Bullets to beat the 'Cats to improve to a 3-4 record on the season ahead of hosting a JackJumpers team they have lost four of the first eight games against in the NBL.

Sunday will be the first time for Hostplus Brisbane Bullets Head Coach Justin Schueller to go up against Scott Roth and the JackJumpers, and he wants his team to build on the momentum from Friday night.

"We know what that squad's about and it's the perfect game to go into now knowing we just want to keep getting better," Schueller said.

"These are the challenges we need and we want to be a playoff team, and we have an internal expectation that we can be a playoff team, and these are the doubles that we have to be great in.

"One of the things this group has is hunger and I know that they all can't wait to turn our focus to Tassie and rewarding our home fans."

Things move quickly once the season starts and already the Bullets are seven games into NBL24 to be a quarter of the way through the campaign.

To be 3-4 isn't quite where the Bullets aimed to be, but it's not too far off and considering it included never having their full squad available and there was a four-game losing streak, it hasn’t been too bad and Schueller looks for them to keep getting better.

"For us we just talk about building our habits and continuing with the process that we've got," he said.

"While the results didn’t go our way, habits were growing and the foundation that we're trying to build was getting stronger and stronger. Wins matter but at the same time we knew we were going in the right direction and we just spoke about how we're one behind our minimum quarter target of wins.

"That's what we wanted to focus on coming into this game so we're not too far off where we wanted to be and now we get into the second quarter of our season, and we have to be better in this one."

It's fair to say there's been plenty of challenges over the opening five weeks of the NBL season for Schueller and the Bullets including still being without Aron Baynes for one more game on Sunday and with Shannon Scott sidelined with his hamstring injury.

However, there's been plenty of positives including the way Tyrell Harrison and Rocco Zikarsky have grabbed their opportunity, the leadership Sam McDaniel and Mitch Norton have brought in, Nathan Sobey stepping up as captain, and Josh Bannan returning and DJ Mitchell contributing strongly.

"The most disappointing thing about the South East game was that we felt we learned to prepare for winning basketball in that week, and we had that little patch where the game blows out and then you're chasing," Schueller said.

"That was a focus point to stop having those dip areas and have a consistency about how we went about things.

"That's the growth of this group, it is a challenge and there's no way I came into this thinking we wouldn’t have our starting line-up, have two guys out and go through what we have where you're trying patchwork through games.

"But what has happened as a positive is that now we have more different looks we can go to, and different things we've been able to evolve with and as a result execution is getting better and better."

Bannan was playing the second game of his NBL career on Friday night in Perth having made his debut the previous Saturday night in his hometown of Melbourne against the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

The power forward was outstanding against the Wildcats playing a team-high 34 minutes for 15 points, six rebounds and two assists on 6/10 shooting.

Schueller is happy for him and only expects him to keep getting better.

"He was a real target for us through recruitment and I had the pleasure of coaching him as a junior, and saw him when he was coming into Melbourne United's practice facility in the times he was home," Schueller said.

"In this game he just showed that he has great touch, he's a physical presence and I also felt like he still had some rust so I think the sky is the limit for where he can go. He's still learning how to play at this level because he's been a collegiate athlete up to this point and he's only going to get better because of that.

"We're really excited to have him back on the floor and he attacked his rehab as you would expect, and now he's getting to enjoy it. We also asked him to impact winning when he was out and he made sure he did that, he's an enthusiastic guy and has the best fist pumps on our team."

One of the strengths of the Bullets this season was going to be the rotation of the three centres with Baynes, Harrison and Zikarsky. That hasn’t quite gone to plan in the absence of Baynes the past four matches, but the positive is that the extra responsibility for Harrison and Zikarsky will only help in the long-term.

Zikarsky is just 17 years of age and the Next Star is improving every time he hits the floor and while Harrison has battled foul problems, he is just about at career-best levels in terms of his finishing at the basket, rebounding and rim protection.

"There's a lot of talk about Rocco and he wasn’t meant to be playing this much so quickly, he was meant to be learning but he's been thrown in the deep end. I just feel like every game he's getting a little bit better," Schueller said.

"Tyrell I know is keen for Aron to get back because now the foul trouble doesn’t hurt him as much and I thought he was huge again in this game. We really notice when he's not on the floor. The bigs have been battling and DJ Mitchell, Banno and everyone has chipped in."

At no point in the season have the Bullets had what they might have thought would be their first choice starting five, but the selflessness of the group was never more evident than on Friday night.

Sobey and Chris Smith have every reason to think they should be the main option on offence for Brisbane, but they were willing to rotate in the two spot to allow Norton to start as point guard and McDaniel to play 33 minutes and make life hell for Perth superstar Bryce Cotton.

"The starting line-up we thought we'd have this season hasn’t played together yet and there has been a lot of moving parts," Schueller said.

"What I love is that both Chris and Sobes were willing to come off the bench just to keep a steady of diet of scoring. We've had that patch in the second consistently where we've let points go and the fact that the group is willing to do that naturally gives you a lot of pleasure as a coach."

GAME INFO

Who: Brisbane Bullets vs Tasmania JackJumpers

Tip off: 3:00pm (AEST), Sunday 29 October, 2023

Where: Nissan Arena

Tickets: Available Here

Watch: 10 Peach, ESPN via Foxtel and Kayo

Listen: SEN Q Radio