Brisbane, New Zealand clash looming as early elimination final

The NBL Finals look set to start early on Friday night when the Bullets and Breakers clash in what’s shaping up to be a do-or-die game for both Finals-chasing sides.

Should the Bullets lose, they’ll be forced to rely on a win from South East Melbourne against Sydney on Saturday night to secure their first post-season campaign in half a decade. Should the Breakers lose, they’ll have another opportunity to stamp their pass with Sunday’s game against Adelaide, but then their fate could be decided by percentage.

Either way, relying on other results or percentage swings will be the last thing either side will want to do, so while it’s not ‘win or go home’, it might as well be.

“We’ve arrived at an elimination final. If New Zealand lose they can still beat Adelaide in that final game and get themselves in but it certainly feels that way for Brisbane. They’re going to be very, very nervous if they lose,” Liam Santamaria said on NBL Now.

“If they do win this game they will essentially find themselves in the post-season like the Hawks. It’s really hard to pick, obviously the Breakers have that home court advantage, they have the emotion of Tom Abercrombie and his retirement announcement this week.

“While the Brisbane Bullets have had some difficulties in some important moments and clutch situations over the season, I feel like it’s slid a little bit under the radar but they’ve also come up big in some moments as well.

“There have been situations over the course of the season that have resulted in them building and having 132 wins. You don’t get that by accident and they’ve been a quality team as well. It all sets itself up for a barnburner tonight.

“It’s early for us – 5:30pm AEDT – but wrap work up and settle yourself in for what’s going to be a contest.”

Brisbane’s Round 19 victory against Adelaide put a halt to a two-game losing run for the Bullets, however those double-digit defeats to Melbourne and Illawarra have pulled the side right back into the thick of the Finals race.

They shot a spectacular 55 per cent from three in their victory over the 36ers, but that game is something of an outlier on the season for Justin Schueller’s men.

Brisbane is the worst three-point shooting team in the League this season. They’ve hit just over 30 per cent of their long-range attempts, and have shot below 20 per cent from the arc on four separate occasions in NBL24.

The worst of which came in a 35-point defeat to Melbourne where they hit just three of 26 three-point attempts for the game.

Santamaria has earmarked that long-range shooting as a key metric by which the Bullets could win or lose tonight’s clash.

“This is the type of moment I backed Brisbane in for, coming into the start of the season they felt a bit like a Tassie type of team where they’re going to be a really tough beat, and they’re going to be solid,” Santamaria said.

“Solid gets you a lot of wins in the NBL but the question is, can they be solid enough tonight? Can they be solid enough to make life difficult for Parker Jackson-Cartwright and keep him off the foul line. Can they be solid enough on the glass to limit the Breakers to one possession every time they come down the floor, and then the huge question mark is can they be solid enough from long-range.

“They’re last in the league in three-point percentage and they’ve had some games where they’ve been bone-dry from the three-point line.

“You’ve got to hit shots in big games and they’re going to need Nathan Sobey, Sam McDaniel, guys like Josh Bannan and Isaac White and Chris Smith in a big way to come out and knock a few down.”

Brisbane’s clash with New Zealand tips off at 5:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo, and Sky Sport in NZ.