Preview: NBL26 R5 Home v Melbourne United

The Brisbane Bullets produced a brilliant road performance on Wednesday and now return to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Friday night for the second home game of NBL26 up against the unbeaten Melbourne United.

The Bullets arrived in Perth for Wednesday night's Ignite Cup match up against the Wildcats having lost their previous four matches, but they produced an outstanding performance.

Brisbane opened up the game outscoring the Wildcats 11-2 before still leading by eight at half-time before the advantage grew to 14 in the third quarter and 23 in the fourth on the way to the eventual 110-93 victory.

There was plenty to like in the performance from the Bullets as they shot 54 per cent from the field, 46 per cent from downtown and outrebounded the 'Cats 46-32 including pulling down 15 offensive boards to nine.

Now the Bullets have a tremendously short turnaround to fly back to Brisbane on Thursday and prepare to host Melbourne on Friday night at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre.

United arrives having not played since beating the Cairns Taipans by 35 points on Sunday to keep their undefeated start to the season going with a 5-0 record.

Melbourne also welcomed back Chris Goulding for his first game of the season in that win on Sunday while they have plenty of other weapons for the Bullets to be mindful of including Milton Doyle, Tyson Walker, Tanner Krebs, Dash Daniels, Finn Delany, Fabijan Krslovic and Jesse Edwards.

It's not ideal for the Bullets to have played in Perth on Wednesday and having to come back home to host a fresh United on Friday, but coach Stu Lash isn’t interested in making excuses and has full faith his team will be ready to perform for the home fans.

"It's a tough one travelling all the way out to Perth on a Wednesday and we love the idea of the Ignite Cup which is great for the league, but to have a turnaround where you play on Friday is a tough one," Lash said.

"I think Melbourne will even be in Brisbane before we will be, but we embrace the challenge and there's no complaints.

"If you're a competitor, we're coming off a great win on the road and you get the top team in the league at your home building and we've only played one home game so far, we'll be ready to go."

There was a lot to like in what the Bullets did in the win in Perth on Wednesday night where they claimed all seven points on offer for the Ignite Cup.

A host of players stepped up with standout performances and it wasn’t just Tyrell Harrison (27 points, 15 rebounds, three assists) and Casey Prather (34 points, 10 boards, three assists) who were dominant forces.

Tristan Devers also delivered 15 points, three rebounds and three assists, Alex Ducas 14 points, four steals and three boards, Taine Murray 12 points on 3/3 three-point shooting, Lamar Patterson seven points and six assists, and Jaylen Adams six assists and three steals.

Although last Saturday night's game against the Illawarra Hawks got away from the Bullets, they have been playing good basketball the majority of the season to date over the first six games so Lash was anything but surprised to see them play so well in Perth.

"We've been playing good basketball all season other than probably that first quarter against Illawarra where it got away from us quick," Lash said.

"There's been a lot of close games so I think the big two bigs focuses of emphasis for us were keeping them off the offensive boards, and we held them to nine which is a great number, and we talked about our ball movement and trust on offence.

"We just had to be a bit better with that and we came out of it with 25 assists on 41 made field goals so that was what was top of mind for us.

"We just wanted to play the right way, move the ball and play with great effort which other than a smart of that Illawarra game, it has been great from the very first game we've played this year."

GAME INFO

Who: Brisbane Bullets vs Melbourne United

Tip off: 6:30pm (AEST), Friday 17 October, 2025

Where: Brisbane Entertainment Centre

Tickets: Available Here

Watch: ESPN via Foxtel, Disney+, Kayo and Fetch