R12 Preview: Sydney Kings vs Brisbane Bullets

When: 5.30pm (AEDT), Saturday 3 April

Where: Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney

Broadcast: SBS Viceland; Sky Sports NZ; SBS On Demand; Twitch

The last time
Sydney 119 (Ware 25, Martin 21, Moller 15) d Brisbane 108 (Sobey 35, Law 23, Hodgson 12) Round 9, Nissan Arena

If you like offence, this was the game of the season so far. Big shot after big shot, big players making big plays, furious runs, selfless team basketball and a contest that was too close to call into the final two minutes. Ultimately a pair of enormous Casper Ware dagger threes proved the difference after he and Nathan Sobey produced a classic shootout for the ages.

The now
Of course, that was in the days when Brisbane started a guy named Vic Law at power forward, who together with Sobes formed arguably the league’s best duo – averaging a combined 41.6ppg and 6.8apg – although Bryce Cotton and John Mooney might have something to say about that. Regardless, the news that Law will be sidelined for an “extended period” is a hammer blow for the Bullets, who have gone from the league’s highest-scoring team to one struggling to find a basket.

Sydney are the NBL’s Jekyll and Hyde offensive team, swinging from ‘Bricklayers R Us’ to high-octane entertainers on a regular basis. There are a number of reasons for that – injuries and defensive rebounding being two big factors – but on Thursday they produced a highly-disciplined display at both ends to almost pip Perth. Afterwards, coach Adam Forde voiced his concerns over officiating at RAC Arena, will that be a galvanising force for his team or a distraction after an outstanding performance?

The stats

 - The inconsistent Kings’ past 11 scores have been a roller-coaster of 106, 96, 80, 92, 91, 69, 119, 103, 75, 65 and 89 points

 - Sydney allow just 10.6 points per game from free throws against all opponents bar Perth, who have averaged 23.3 points from free throws against the Kings this season

 - In Brisbane’s two games since Law’s injury they’ve averaged a woeful 74ppg at 35 per cent. Over the rest of the season they’ve run up an impressive 93.9ppg at 47 per cent

 - In those two games, the Bullets have got to the foul line a total of 19 times. Prior to that they were averaging 20.1 free-throw attempts per game


The key men

Anthony Drmic – Only Brisbane can explain the rationale and timing of the Orlando Johnson release and Lamar Patterson signing, but it has left them in a real bind with Law out. Opposition teams can now target Nathan Sobey with impunity, and the star guard has shot 13-of-39 in the past two games, after connecting at 51 per cent prior to Law’s injury.

The Bullets are now reliant on Sobey’s penetration and Matt Hodgson’s post-work to shift the defence, but to be effective they need players connecting from the arc to spread the defence. Drmic has made just 6-of-20 three-pointers the past two games, and given his ability to punish overplay on the drive, his shooting is a key third wheel in Brisbane’s O.

Craig Moller – Over the past five games Moller has burst out of his early-season funk, averaging 8.4 points at 63 per cent, 6-of-10 from deep, 6.6 rebounds, 2.8 o-boards, 2.4 assists, 1 steal and 1 block per night to provide some serious all-court punch. Over that stretch, the Kings have been +21 with the former Docker on the floor and -8 in his pine time.

He will be a crucial on Saturday, as with no Law or Patterson the Bullets will either go big at the four-spot with Harry Froling or Hodgson, or small with a swingman like Drmic. If Moller can defend the bigger men and then stretch them out at the other end, and likewise punish the smaller opponents on the o-boards, he becomes a headache for Andrej Lemanis and Co.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Craig Moller. <br>All the hustle. ????<br><br>Six rebounds, one steal, and getting a hand on everything in the first half. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeTheKings?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeTheKings</a> <a href="https://t.co/2IZoJvPHiF">pic.twitter.com/2IZoJvPHiF</a></p>&mdash; Sydney Kings (@SydneyKings) <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings/status/1373525437779877895?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The quotes

Things looked very promising for Brisbane just 14 days ago when they overwhelmed New Zealand by 21 points to post their sixth win in eight games, but things can change quickly in today’s world.

“We’re that team at the moment, that state-of-flux team that doesn’t know what’s going on, uncertainty, and that’s a good mental challenge for us,” coach Andrej Lemanis said.

“We’re going to have to find a way through it, we’re also going to have to get healthy ... we've shown that with all our pieces we can be good, but we’ve got to get all the pieces.”

Since their last win, Brisbane have crashed to NZ in the return bout and were then hammered mercilessly by Illawarra on Monday night, leaving the Bullet train seemingly in reverse at the moment with injury and illness biting.

“There are lots of disappointing losses, every time you lose it’s disappointing,” Lemanis said after the Hawks defeat.

“There are certain facts that need to at least be considered coming into today, and every team in this season is going to have their periods where they're interrupted and they’ve got some challenges and things to overcome.

“We obviously had that at the start of the year with injuries and people being out, and we’re in that patch here, the last two weeks we've dealt with a whole bunch of illness.”

While all the Bullets’ COVID tests have come back negative, the virus has still wreaked havoc on their past fortnight.

“On the back of playing the other night came down (to Wollongong) yesterday, weren’t allowed to have our practice yesterday because of the COVID outbreak in Brisbane, we all had to sit in our hotel and get COVID tests.

“Then this morning with the escalation of what was happening in Brisbane the NBL cancelled our shootaround and told us we weren’t allowed to do that, so basically we just sat in our hotel all day.

“So I think what you saw in the first half tonight was a product of many things, and certainly that contributed to it.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Matt finishes with two hands so often we&#39;ll just call him High Percentage Hodgson ?‍??<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/kvYMD4WgAf">pic.twitter.com/kvYMD4WgAf</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1376466497254486018?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

There were some self-inflicted wounds, however, the Bullets effective offence nowhere to be seen as they rarely tested the Hawks’ interior.

“We got on our back heels, Illawarra were obviously extremely physical, we didn’t deal with that well, I thought we played rushed and without the appropriate grunt defensively,” Lemanis said.

“I thought we settled, that was one of the issues, we settled for threes ... Drmic hit those first two and I think that tricked us a little bit into believing that was how we should play this game, ultimately we ended up paying the price for it.”

Brisbane were three-point happy last time they faced Sydney, hoisting 35 triples and racing to a double-figure lead just before half-time.

But it was the Kings who came off best as the shootout ensued, Casper Ware and Jarell Martin poured in the points, and Jordan Hunter and Craig Moller made all the effort plays.

“We were so focused on Sobey, he’s such a good basketball player that we really wanted to hone in on him, we were trying trap the post a little bit because Vic Law is a really good basketball player as well. The bi-product of that was they were hitting their threes because we were slow on our rotations,” Kings coach Adam Forde said.

“I'm not saying we necessarily improved that in the second half but the energy was there, the intent was there, so now they're still getting those threes but where we were a metre-and-a-half off, now we’re half-a-metre off so we can contest it and challenge it and go and get the rebound.”

Forde was hoping that second half would be a “line-in-the-sand” for his team, but their up-and-down production has continued since.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Casper Ware will not be denied in this final quarter ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/WcqxUYAHLd">pic.twitter.com/WcqxUYAHLd</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1377593584161935367?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 1, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

What he likes, and which showed its head again in their gutsy display in Perth, is this is a Kings team that can never be counted out.

“This is where I'm really happy with this team as they have that mental toughness,” Forde said.

“It’s still evolving, it’s still early days of how we want to build our identity as a team, but we've shown that we've probably taken the right steps in the right direction.”