Bullets Show Heart but United Get Important Win

Despite a rough start again, the Brisbane Bullets showed encouraging heart to light up Nissan Arena on Saturday night but couldn’t quite go on with it with Melbourne United having too much at stake to claim the 101-91 win.

Brisbane came into a fourth straight home game having lost their previous three by an average of 29.3 points including by 49 on Wednesday night against the Sydney Kings.

With United arriving knowing they needed to continue winning to keep their playoff aspirations alive, they weren’t in the mood to be sentimental and brought their momentum from Thursday's win over New Zealand with them.

United raced out to an 18-6 start and then by early in the third quarter, their lead grew to 22 points and the signs weren’t good for Brisbane.

The Bullets hadn’t hit a three-pointer up to that stage, but all of a sudden they knocked down six of them in the next several minutes and their loyal home fans were rocking with their team down two.

The game then took a dramatic twist when an attempted challenge from Bullets coach Greg Vanderjagt was missed. Directly after that, Melbourne hit three triples to steady and that was enough to be back on top to end up winning by 10.

The victory improves United to a 13-12 record on the season to stay a chance of reaching the top six. The Bullets have now lost five straight to 5-17.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Shea Ili as the clock goes off! ?<br><br>We&#39;ve seen that one before ?<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/GvHOwmTTsr">pic.twitter.com/GvHOwmTTsr</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1614177958138347520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Rayjon Tucker continued his impressive run of form with another 30 points for Melbourne on 10/17 shooting from the field, 2/5 from deep and 8/9 at the foul line.

Xavier Rathan-Mayes added 20 points, five rebounds and five assists with Chris Goulding scoring 21 points on 5/14 three-point shooting.

Shea Ili chimed in with 11 points, seven assists, five rebounds and three steals while Marcus Lee fouled out midway through the fourth after four points, six rebounds and four blocks.

United coach Dean Vickerman was delighted afterwards with the hard earned fourth straight win.

"I loved the way that we came out with the pace that we played at," Vickerman said. 

"Tuck was huge in that all night and then when we got stops and his sprints to get to the rim, and drawing eight fouls was huge in us just getting some cheap points. 

"Credit to Vandy and their coaching staff, that third quarter run that they made was with floaters over the top of our contest, it was contested threes and everyone was aggressive. 

"It was a lot to deal with and being able to handle that run, get through it and it was a pretty composed fourth quarter from us."

Aron Baynes delivered his best performance in the NBL for the Bullets with 21 points and 11 rebounds with Nathan Sobey adding 18 points, six assists and four boards.

DJ Mitchell contributed 15 points and Tyler Johnson 13 to go with six rebounds.

Brisbane coach Greg Vanderjagt was encouraged by a lot of his team's showing.

"Obviously it was an improved performance from Wednesday night," Vanderjagt said. 

"I thought we played really good basketball for close to 30 minutes of that game, the first quarter obviously hurts us down 34-20. 

"A lot of the stuff was in the first eight seconds of the clock and we needed to address it, and the guys responded positively to what we talked about in the huddles and timeouts, and at half-time. 

"We really took them out of transitions for the remainder of the game and our intent to defend, to keep people in front of us and our aggressiveness in the pick-and-roll was really positive. 

"We won the rebound count (46-36) convincingly, which was a real big focus for us and some guys really stood up and put their hands up tonight."

It didn’t take long for Melbourne to stamp their authority on the game knowing they needed to keep winning to stay in the finals race. 

The last thing Brisbane needed was another slow start after losing to Sydney by 49, but United were feeling it early and Rayjon Tucker took them to an 8-2 lead which was soon 11-4 after a triple from Chris Goulding, and then 18-6 after another 7-0 run.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Aron Baynes nails the cheeky overhead put-back to eclipse his previous career-high points in an NBL game.<br><br>He&#39;s up to 2??1?? now ?<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/uRv68Fulai">pic.twitter.com/uRv68Fulai</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1614175519830085632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Brisbane's offence wasn’t terrible the rest of the quarter and they did manage 20 points including 10 of them to Aron Baynes, but they coughed up six turnovers and with 13 points to Tucker and shooting 63 per cent as a team, Melbourne went into quarter-time leading 34-20.

A couple of threes to Goulding to start the second quarter kept Melbourne on top by 15 with the lead growing to 16 before Nathan Sobey helped to keep Brisbane somewhat in touch.

He and Baynes ended up with 20 of Brisbane's 37 points for the half, but Tucker (17), Goulding (11) and Rathan-Mayes (seven) combined for 35 of Melbourne's 54 to see the visitors up 17 at the break.

Melbourne's advantage grew to 22 to start the second half too but then Brisbane showed some impressive resilience to break back into the contest to the delight of the 4703 fans in Nissan Arena.

Brisbane missed their first seven three-point attempts of the game, but that changed in a hurry with DJ Mitchell knocking down two of them and Baynes another as part of an 11-0 to bring life back into the contest.

The Bullets were just warming up. Sobey knocked down his team's fourth three of the quarter and then after Tyler Johnson nailed two more from deep, suddenly the home team was within two points just minutes after being down 22.

They had all the momentum before a rough run of events. It appeared coach Greg Vanderjagt called for a challenge on an out of bounds call, but it was missed and on the subsequent Melbourne restart, Goulding hit his fourth three of the game.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Do not give Chris Goulding a ?????????? of space ?<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/4ygXHzTPB1">pic.twitter.com/4ygXHzTPB1</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1614171388084113411?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 14, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Bullets then turned it over and Goulding hit his fifth three. Then after a Vanderjagt timeout, Tucker knocked down his second from beyond the arc which helped Melbourne still lead by 11 at three quarter-time.

A three-point play from Tucker and bomb from three-point territory by Ili saw United back out to a 15-point lead early in the fourth and from there they were able to secure the 10-point win.

The hectic schedule continues for the Bullets with a clash with the South East Melbourne Phoenix in Melbourne on Monday. United don't play again until playing the New Zealand Breakers in Auckland next Saturday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 15

BRISBANE BULLETS 91 (Baynes 21, Sobey 18, Mitchell 15)

MELBOURNE UNITED 101 (Tucker 30, Goulding 21, Rathan-Mayes 20) 

BOX SCORE