"Frustration" grows as Bullets misfire

“Frustration” was the word of the day for the Brisbane Bullets following their Round 7 defeat to Sydney, and both head coach Justin Schueller and star guard Nathan Sobey have lamented a missed opportunity to snatch a big win away from home.

The Bullets were on the wrong side of a 15-0 run to close out the game, and ended up falling to the reigning champions by nine points.

Jaylen Adams and DJ Hogg starred for the Kings down the stretch, but Brisbane has been made to consider what might have been, having led by as many as 14 points in the second quarter.

“There have been a few games this season where we’ve been in winnable positions and we’ve let them go,” Schueller said post-game.

“It’s a frustration because we know how good we can be in this league, but it’s part of our learnings right now – how do we get 40 minutes of consistency in that?

“The last five minutes for them we let them have 17 points. It’s a frustration and that’s the only word I’ve got right now.”

Sobey was among Brisbane’s top performers in the defeat, and has since earned a nomination for the Chemist Warehouse Fans MVP off the back of his 17 points and five assists.

He echoed Schueller’s sentiments, and believes the victory was there for the taking.

“It’s simple, we had that game and let it slip,” Sobey said.

“There is definitely a lot of frustration but there are positives to take out of it. We know how good we can be as a group, we’ll continue to keep working away at it and chipping away at it and we’ll be better for it moving forward.

“For 30 minutes we were probably there – it’s just the 10 minutes we just really have to stay on top of and if we lock that down we’re going to be right moving forward.”

Brisbane’s tough night further deteriorated when in-form big Tyrell Harrison went down with a calf injury late in proceedings, before Aron Baynes then fouled out in the final minutes.

Harrison had recently staked a claim to be the side’s starting center over Baynes, but could spend some time on the sidelines following the injury.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Get ? there Rocco!<br><br>Catch the action live on ESPN via Kayo Freebies | 10 Peach and 10 Play? <a href="https://t.co/5j2mpmDLAa">pic.twitter.com/5j2mpmDLAa</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1723578991683031531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 12, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Next Star Rocco Zikarsky played just seven minutes in the defeat, but Schueller was pleased with the output of his ‘three-headed monster’.

“I thought our bigs did a good job. Tyrell straining his calf in the second half didn’t help us with that one but I thought ‘Banger’ (Baynes) really gave us a presence and so did Roc,” Schueller said. 

“We knew that was going to be an area we could target, but we just didn’t target it enough.

“Part of Rocco’s development this year is not to throw him in the deep end and put him in a position that doesn’t give him some success.

“One of Rocco’s developments is against shooting bigs and they put a lot of shooting on the floor.

“He did his job tonight, in his minutes we were happy with him and when there was opportunity to go back to it we liked the balance we had.

“He’ll continue to challenge me to put him out there.”

The defeat sees the Bullets enter Round 8 in seventh on the ladder. The Bullets will host Perth on Saturday, November 18 at 8pm AEDT.