Schueller commends wounded Bullets

The absence of Sam McDaniel was magnified for the Brisbane Bullets in Friday night's loss to the Illawarra Hawks, with groin injuries to Mitch Norton and Deng Adel compounding matters, but coach Justin Schueller felt it was still a step forward.

He wasn’t thinking that after the first quarter though. The Bullets had an impressive pre-season, including winning the Loggins-Bruton Cup at the NBL Blitz, but then put in a stinker over the first 34 minutes in Perth against the New Zealand Breakers.

The Bullets were 23 points down with six minutes to go, but then produced a stunning finish to get back to within two and almost snatch what would have been a memorable first-up win.

On the back of that, the last thing Schueller was expecting to see on Friday night in Wollongong was another slow start against the Hawks and he could scarcely believe his eyes as the first quarter unfolded.

Illawarra put up 38 points and 16 of those came from Hawks point guard Trey Kell III and he would have been a natural matchup for Brisbane's defensive maestro McDaniel, who has now been ruled out for the season with a shoulder injury.

Schueller was rightfully worried with a 16-point deficit early in the second term, but he saw his Bullets team then respond impressively, with 35 points the rest of the first half to turn into the break leading by a point.

They couldn’t quite keep it going through the second half with groin injuries to captain Norton and gun forward Adel not helping matters, on top of the absence of McDaniel and power forward Josh Bannan.

The Bullets went on to lose by 12 and while Schueller will never accept losing, for the most part he couldn’t fault the effort this team put forward.

"We were close to playing Bannan and we had a couple of groins during the game so my head straightaway went to long-term thought and not a short-term fix," Schueller said.

"We know he's (Bannan) going to help, but the frustration during the week was Sammy Mac going out for the year, so we're adjusting our style a little bit, because he is our best defender.

"We now need to play a different way and I thought the guys attacked things the way we wanted to. There were breakdowns and a little bit of frustration, but the way we went about it after that first quarter I commend the guys for what they did."

Schueller does expect Bannan to be right to play for the Bullets' home opener next Friday night and while he knows that McDaniel won't be back, his fingers are crossed for the health of both Norton and Adel.

"It's too early to really say how he (Norton) is," he said.

"There's not a sharp pain which is a positive at this point, but Deng Adel hurt a groin as well. There was a couple of slips there on the floor which is frustrating that they occur."

While the losses to the Breakers and Hawks in Perth and Wollongong respectively hasn’t been the start to NBL25 that the Bullets were hoping for, there's great excitement about a home opener next Friday.

While there is again frustrations for Schueller that once again he hasn’t been able to get a full squad out on the floor, the excitement is there for the Bullets to be moving back to playing at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre this season.

They outgrew Nissan Arena and it's a credit to the work done by the Bullets organisation and also the Brisbane community that they have combined to demand to play at a bigger venue.

Schueller can't wait to get to Boondall now next Friday night, while fully aware of the challenge that the visiting Sydney Kings will present.

"I think there's already a bit of a vibe about us going back there and we've got a lot of the old guys around the club involved," Schueller said.

"Something we have to be proud of is the history of our club and to be able to go back to BEC and have an opportunity to play for the first time there on the back of a full week of prep, our focus is on continuing to get better.

"We've got the Kings coming in and everyone's pretty high on them, so we'll have to be at our best to make sure that we continue to move in the direction we want and getting better."