Treat them all like they are a Game 5: Norton

As he approaches his 350-game NBL milestone, Brisbane Bullets captain Mitch Norton is showing outstanding leadership topped off by a big individual showing on Saturday but all he cares about is winning and making sure they treat every game like Grand Final Game 5.

Norton's leadership and ability to run the point, and playing his trademark tenacious defence has been on show in his first five games as Bullets captain to open NBL25.

He delivered all of that again on Saturday night at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre against the Tasmania JackJumpers, and added a brilliant offensive display to finish with 20 points, five assists and three steals while shooting 8/13 from the floor and 2/4 from downtown.

It was the 348th game of his NBL career that started in Townsville before stints with Illawarra and Perth. Now in his second season in Brisbane, all that matters is winning and making sure his team is doing everything they can to give themselves the best chance to make that happen.

"I just think it's difficult to get momentum in this league full stop because the league is so talented, and every team can beat anyone on any given night," Norton said.

"That's something that means you really have to lean into the week we had, and look at if we were solid on each possession every day.

"Were we treating it like it was Game 5 of a Grand Final or were we just floating through it a little. Only individuals can answer that themselves and from there it's any given night anyone can beat anyone."

While Norton played a tremendous individual game at both ends of the floor, it matters little to him at this point of his career and as captain of the club when they didn’t win the game.

While there were good things that the Bullets did especially to fight back from a 19-point deficit against the JackJumpers, to not win means there's still a lot for them to improve on.

"We didn’t get the win so that's what this club is priding itself on is winning ball games," he said.

"It doesn’t matter who makes that happen, we want to do it by a committee and I managed to put some points on the board, but we didn’t get the win and that's the thing that matters the most.

"We'll go back and look at film about how we can get different guys into their spots and shots, and then from there we'll move forward."

While the Bullets did only score nine points in the first 13 minutes of Saturday night's game, panic didn’t set in because they felt like they were running the offence reasonably well, and creating decent looks.

Sometimes your shots won't fall and you need to stay patient and persistent to keep doing what you've been working on, and trusting it will come good which it eventually did.

"I just think you gain confidence and everything by putting in the reps and everything we do at training," Norton said.

"We move the ball really well at training, we get great shots and we knock them down. That's how you gain confidence that water always finds its level and I think that's why we were able to make that comeback."

Norton also appreciated the leadership shown in an early timeout from Jarred Bairstow who has great insight into the JackJumpers having played with them in their first three NBL seasons including being part of their NBL24 championship.

"We execute sometimes and we look really good, and generate the shots we want, and in this game they just didn’t fall," Norton said.

"In one of the timeouts in the first quarter, Bair was bang on and said that it's a winnable score we're keeping them to, shots will drop and we've just got to keep executing.

"That's something that we've focused on and it's really good to have his input as a former player for them, and a championship player. He was bang on and I thought we responded well to that."