White excited by culture building at Bullets

Isaac White is enjoying the role he's finding himself in at the Brisbane Bullets, but in the bigger picture it's the winning culture he feels that is building this NBL season that he's excited to be part of.

White is in his first season at the Bullets having previously played at both the Illawarra Hawks and Tasmania JackJumpers to start his NBL career, but he is no stranger to Queensland and has wasted no time settling in at Brisbane.

Fresh off a standout NBL1 North season with the Mackay Meteors where he was nation's leading scorer, White has made a strong start in the Bullets backcourt in NBL24 alongside the likes of Nathan Sobey, Mitch Norton and Shannon Scott.

White is now on the verge of playing his 100th game in the NBL and his 97th appearance in the league saw him play a key role in Sunday's win against the Hawks at Nissan Arena where he finished with nine points, three rebounds and two assists.

On a number of fronts White enjoyed getting that win against the Hawks not only for the Bullets to make it a double win weekend to improve to 7-7 on the season, but to also get the bragging rights over some former teammates and his Mackay coach Joel Khalu.

"I always feel like I can come out to have an impact and obviously having been on Illawarra a couple of years back I have a certain comfort level and always feel like that against teams I've played with," White said.

"Also my boy Joel Khalu's now an assistant there for them so my motivation was right up and I always feel like I can impact the game, and help us win.

"It was pretty funny and every time I subbed in Grida was doing all sorts at me and I had a little flex at Joel every time I gave them a bucket just because we'd been talking trash every week. It's always fun going against familiar faces and it probably makes me a little more comfortable than anything."

On the back of Friday night's win in the Sunshine Stoush against the Cairns Taipans, White and the Bullets backed it up on Sunday with the win against the Hawks, and to close out two tight wins are something he feels is a great sign moving forward.

"It was fun to get another win and obviously the feel at home is a little bit different," White said.

"Our fans are really good and they get behind us, and kind of help us down the stretch. What I take away from it, and me and Mitch Norton talk about it a lot, and it's building the habit of winning.

"We've dropped a couple of close ones and we've now won these two games, and that's building a habit whether it's ugly or not.

"I like the way we're going, it's just been about being able to close the game because we've shown we can put at least three really good quarters together and just haven't been able to finish. We've now got two under our belt and hopefully we can take that to keep moving from it."

Having been part of strong contending teams both at Illawarra and Tasmania, White knows what a winning culture looks like, and from the moment he arrived at the Bullets to prepare for NBL24 that's exactly what he feels they have been building.

"I've never gone into a game feeling like we'd lose it, to be honest with you," he said.

"On paper we are just as talented as anyone and obviously I believe in what we do day to day habit-wise and stuff like that. So I guess our ceiling is championship but it's one game at a time and there hasn’t been one game where I've thought we are in trouble here."

While White had been contributing strongly so far this season with the Bullets in a number of ways, his outside shooting hadn’t been falling like he would have hoped.

Coming into the FIBA international window, he had only made 2/20 from behind the three-point line, but he went 2/4 across the wins against Cairns and Illawarra, and hopes that can now continue moving forward.

"It's been tough with my shooting and it's been something I've continued to work on, and keep on trusting my work," White said.

"It's definitely been a challenge mentally more than anything but there's never been any hesitation from the staff and my teammates.

"They always encourage me to shoot the ball so my focus has just been on doing the other parts of the game that can help win – that's obviously defence and my penetration has been something when I choose my right spots that has been helpful for our team success.

"I've just been focusing on that and now I've been able to get a couple to fall and when that picks up we should be good to go."