The extreme weather in Brisbane on Thursday wasn't the only thing reaching boiling point, with the Bullets tossing aside the star-studded Sydney Kings 86-73 in a heated clash. If Cairns almost discovered the blueprint to beating Sydney on Sunday, Brisbane finished the job with their physical brand of basketball throwing every King except Brad Newley off their game. Bullets imports Jermaine Beal (16 points) and Torrey Craig (18) topped the stat sheet, but the whole side barged their more fancied opponents before blowing them away in a 24-13 final term. Brisbane coach Andrej Lemanis said there was no premeditation to play Sydney physically, rather that it was a defensive effort that had been building through the season. "That's where improvement comes first ... We were second worst in the league," he said after the game. "When you're leaking points, it's hard to build any momentum. I thought tonight there was a real focus and intent from our team that we've been trying to build to." While Brad Newley got off the leash, Lemanis pointed to the quiet night from noted shooter Kevin Lisch and said that defensively sometimes you have to 'pick your poison'. Sydney became stuck in the Brisbane web, and may again be sweating on the NBL's Game Review Panel after becoming embroiled in a scuffle for the second time this week. Former LA Laker Josh Powell and Brisbane's Rueben Te Rangi both earned technical fouls in the third quarter after the former pulled Daniel Kickert to the floor and the latter reacted with a heavy shove, sparking heated words from both teams. That failed to simmer tensions, with Powell reacting angrily to a Mitch Young spray, lashing out at the young forward and giving away an unsportsmanlike foul. Powell's moments of madness took the shine off a Brad Newley clinic, the former Australian Boomer reminding the national coach and current Brisbane mentor Andrej Lemanis what he is capable of with 16 third-quarter points on his way to a game-high 27 for the match. Sydney Kings coach Andrew Gaze refused to finger the physical nature of the game for the loss, but conceded Powell's actions were inappropriate. "It's something we don't want, it's unnecessary and he shouldn't have done it," he said. "I didn't see the replay ... But it was not appropriate." Newley's third-quarter efforts hauled the Kings off the canvass, after they had cruised along early before being shell-shocked by a Beal shooting spree in the second quarter to trail 39-33 at half-time. It momentarily gave the Kings back the lead after trailing by as much as much as seven points in the third quarter, but it was the Bullets who held a slender 62-60 advantage at the final break. Whatever was in the coolers didn't have enough ice in it, because hostilities recommenced early in the fourth quarter. Sydney big man Aleks Maric drew a chorus of boos after appearing to knock Tom Jervis to the floor with an elbow strike, but no whistle. That prompted Jervis to chase him down the court and attempt to return fire, giving away the game's second unsportsmanlike foul. The Newley show rolled on, but his third triple of the night came after a questionable call where he had appeared to have knocked the ball out of bounds. He proved he was human, though, with two misses of regulation shots late in the game which allowed Brisbane to skip out to a seven-point lead, a margin that proved unassailable.   BRISBANE BULLETS 86 (Craig 18, Beal 16, Kickert 15) SYDNEY KINGS 73 (Newley 27, Lisch 17, Whittington 13) BOX SCORE