The Brisbane Bullets will need to take a long, hard look in the mirror if they are to topple Cairns in Thursday’s Sunshine Stoush because a worrying trend continued to brew in Saturday’s loss to the Phoenix.
Brisbane lost badly, 109-86, at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre as pressure mounts on the team to get its act together before it is too late. They are a world away from being contenders.
Former Bullet Mitch Sobey made timely buckets in his 29-point return to the town he had an ugly exit from 18 months ago.
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Brisbane led for just 2:20 and for the third straight game found themselves down 20 points on more than one occasion.
But that’s not the only problem. For the third game in a row, they trailed by at least 10 in the first quarter. It is the third successive game they’ve got up at least 10 less shots than their opposition and the third straight they’ve left at least 10 points out there at the charity stripe.
The offence isn’t gelling, and it just so happened Casey Prather (18 points, 5 turnovers) had an off night.
It meant the spotlight shone bright on an inefficient offence that isn’t yielding many quality looks. It all reached boiling point midway through the fourth when a wide-open missed lay-up on one end was matched with poor defence that let in two threes in quick succession.
Phoenix led 46-39 at half time, when the match was still up for grabs. Quickly the visitors puffed their chests and showed their urgency during a 22-11 run out of the break.
Halfway through the third it was 70-50 and Brisbane’s glimmer of hope was barely flickering.
Phoenix led by as many as 25, their suffocating defence forcing Brisbane into tough shots and their physical effort on the glass afforded them countless second-chance points.
Phoenix had contributions all over the floor. John Brown (12 points) started fabulously, Jordan Hunter (12 points) fired in the second with two threes and blokes like Angus Glover and Akech Aliir added to the hurt with 10 points each.
Composed guard Owen Foxwell, 22, was excellent as Phoenix’s full-court press put Brisbane’s ball-handlers to the sword.
Brisbane bumbled to the main break, down 46-39, after doing so well to hit the lead following an early 12-1 deficit just three minutes in.
Davis & Sobey Clash in fiery altercation | 00:44
The Bullets’ slow starts have been worrying this season and again they found themselves down big. But they rallied to be just 23-20 behind at quarter time. Brisbane then captured a 30-26 lead after a 29-14 run that lit the BEC up.
Shot-blocking big Tyrell Harrison and timeless guard Lamar Patterson were superb in that stretch, but it was all in vain because poor ball security let the Phoenix back into the driver’s seat.
The visitors made their 15-4 run to lead 41-34, with Hunter (two threes) key.
Brisbane threw 10 turnovers to four, allowed 11 offensive rebounds and didn’t hit a single three from seven attempts in the first half. This was after last week hitting just five in a comeback win over the Breakers.
SEM hit eight in the first half and got up 14 more shots (47 to 33). Over the last 80 minutes of play, Brisbane have drained just 10 threes.
In Perth, the Illawarra Hawks have recovered from one of their worst games in more than a decade to beat the Perth Wildcats at RAC Arena in a thriller.
Import JaVale McGee dropped the second of this two free throws with just 0.6 seconds left on the clock, to give the Hawks a narrow 85-84 win.
There didn’t seem much in the Kristian Doolittle foul, but Wildcats coach John Rillie had no challenges left.
The reigning champions lost to the South East Melbourne Phoenix in round 5 lost 40-point loss, their equal heaviest loss in 13 seasons.
Saturday’s win was the first for the Hawks on the road this year on their fourth attempt.
Last season they had a 10-5 record away from home.
The battle between Perth’s big man Jo Lual-Acuil Jr and the Hawk’s JaVale McGee was always going to help decide this clash.
McGee scored one of his four double-doubles against Perth back in round 3.
On Saturday, he had just 11 points and five rebounds at the last break.
But he had a massive final term, finishing with 24 points and 11 boards.
The three games before Saturday, Lual-Acuil Jr had averaged just over four rebounds a game.
By three quarter-time, he had his third double-double for the season, with 12 points and 12 rebounds.
It hurt Perth though when he fouled out of the game with 3.56 remaining in the clock.
At that stage, the Cats were leading by five points.
The Hawks Tyler Harvey also had a massive final term, dropping 13 points for the quarter.
Perth has lived by the three-point shot for so long, it must be hard to break the habit.
But the Wildcats need to find a way, for the time being anyway.
They went only 2-19 from long range against Cairns in round 4.
It would be difficult to beat that, right?
At half time on Saturday night, they were 1-17 from beyond the three-point-line.
They put the long shot away for most of the third term, but were still 1-24 at the last break.
Ben Henshall and Jaron Rillie were 0-7 between them.
With 1.3 seconds left on the clock, the Perth Wildcats had dropped just four of 31 three-point attempts.
Elijah Pepper was 0-7.
But with 1.1 seconds remaining, the Cats went to the well once more, and Pepper tied the scores with an accurate long bomb from the corner.
Illawarra 10 of their 34 three-point attempts, at 29%. Harvey nailed five of his 13 shots from long distance.
— NCA NewsWire