Preview: Round 3 vs Melbourne United at John Cain Arena

It was always going to be a significant occasion for new Hostplus Head Coach Justin Schueller when the Brisbane Bullets played Melbourne United for the first time in NBL24, but all he cares about is coming away with the win from John Cain Arena on Sunday now.

Schueller has been the right hand man to Dean Vickerman at Melbourne United in recent seasons before taking on the job at the Bullets for the 2023/24 season and beyond.

That means that Sunday's game where Schueller will take the Bullets into battle against United at John Cain Arena will be an occasion of mixed emotions for him, but a win for Brisbane is where his focus lies.

The Bullets suffered their first loss of the NBL season last Saturday night at home to the Cairns Taipans. Then again at Nissan Arena on Friday night in the first half of the Round 3 double-header, they also suffered a 113-102 defeat at the hands of the Sydney Kings.

That clash with the champions of the last two seasons is now backed up by taking on a Melbourne team who has won three of four matches so far in NBL24 including a Friday night road victory out west against the Perth Wildcats.

Going head to head with his former mentor Vickerman for the first time on Sunday is something Schueller is looking forward to, but ultimately all he's worried about is making sure the Bullets get back on the winner's list.

"As far as playing Melbourne goes, I owe a lot to that club and a part of the reason I'm here today is because of the things we were able to achieve there," Schueller said.

"But to be honest, now I just want to go in and kick their tail. We now have two losses in-a-row and I don’t care who we play on Sunday, we just have to find a way to be better and that's what matters to me.

"What I love is that I know we'll come in, do our work in preparation and learn from our lumps from this game, and then come in and put ourselves in a position to go get a win."

Playing two games inside three days is always a challenge but that's magnified when you are playing the champions of the past two seasons on Friday and backing up with one of the title favourites on the road on Sunday.

When you throw in the distinctive style differences too with the Kings being the fastest tempo team in the league and then United being the most physically and well-drilled team in the competition, and it throws up its challenges.

Schueller is looking forward to the challenge, though, and has full faith in his Bullets players that they will be up for the task come Sunday at John Cain Arena.

"That's the league, there's pretty vast styles from week to week you come up against and that's where we have to be great at these quick turnarounds," he said.

"We dealt with that last weekend too so it's not like we're unversed at it and being able to get our preparation in, have consistency in how we want to go about our habits, that's our work right now and that's how we'll approach getting ready for Sunday's game."

This Round 3 double-header weekend was always going to be a chance for the Bullets to learn a lot about where they sit this NBL season up against two quality teams.

Making that difficult to judge is the absence of their regular starting front court with Aron Baynes suspended and Josh Bannan injured, but there were still some positives and hard lessons to take from Friday's loss to Sydney.

Giving up 113 points to Sydney and having them knock down 16 three-pointers while going at 53 per cent from the field obviously meant that Schueller was far from pleased with what they did at the defensive end.

However, they did continue to fight and got back within eight in the fourth quarter after trailing by 22 to start the term. To score 102 points themselves with five players in double-figures and going at 49 per cent from the floor and knocking down 13 triples was a positive.

It was a mixed evening on a number of fronts for Schueller and the Bullets, but he will now get to work and to help tidy up some areas heading into Sunday's match up with Melbourne.

"We're playing the top of the league so one thing we'll learn is how much we are really in the mix and where we need to get our growth, and where we're going to improve," Schueller said.

"Someone like Baynesy is someone you're going to miss and it's not an easy fix on that, but the other part is we've also been playing without Bannan and that's not an easy fix either.

"We're not used to it, but for us it's about the guys in the room and we know we've got enough talent whether we've got one, two, three guys out that if we stick to what we want to be about, we can put ourselves in a position to win any ball game.

"Giving up 113 points, that's not us and we want to hang our head on our D and we just didn’t do that."

Being without Baynes and Bannan up front is a significant challenge at the moment for the Bullets meaning Tyrell Harrison stepped into that starting role, 17-year-old Next Star Rocco Zikarsky has been thrown in the deep end and DJ Mitchell is being significantly relied upon.

The trio all did plenty of good things on Friday night, though, with Harrison finishing with 12 points and four rebounds, Zikarsky six points and four boards, and Mitchell nailing 4/6 from downtown on his way to 16 points, five assists and two steals.

There's was plenty to be encouraged about, but Schueller knows full well they will need to keep delivering up against the Melbourne front court headed up by Next Star Ariel Hukporti and Kiwi veteran Rob Loe.

GAME INFO

Who: Brisbane Bullets vs Melbourne United

Tip off: 1:00pm (AEST), Sunday 15 October, 2023

Where: John Cain Arena

Watch: 10 Peach, ESPN via Foxtel and Kayo