Hodgson hammers Bullets home over United

What a three days for the Brisbane Bullets. They backed up Friday's win over the Perth Wildcats to beat Melbourne United 96-88 at the NBL Cup on Sunday on the back of a rocketing start and then centre Matt Hodgson slamming them home.

It was a remarkable start from the Bullets as they built on the momentum from handing the Wildcats their first NBL Cup defeat on Friday night.

Up against the league-leading Melbourne back at John Cain Arena on Sunday, the Bullets shot out of the gate with the game's first 10 points before leading 19-8 and with that advantage growing to as much as 19.

Melbourne was always going to fire back, though, and they outscored Brisbane 25 points to 14 in the first seven minutes of the second half to take their first lead of the afternoon.

United then pulled away to lead by four with five minutes left after a couple of triples to returning captain Chris Goulding before Jock Landale and Dave Barlow got in on the act.

So Brisbane had to dig deep and it was a charge led by Matt Hodgson. He stayed out of foul trouble, defended Jock Landale strongly and then was a powerful force down low offensively. 

In the last five minutes alone he scored 11 points and his huge slam right over the top of Melbourne's Mason Peatling sealed the deal with 25 seconds remaining.

Brisbane now becomes the only team to beat both Melbourne and Perth this season with Hodgson finishing with a career-best 24 points and four rebounds on 10/16 shooting.

Jason Cadee was outstanding too with 19 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals while hitting 5/11 from deep.

What that duo provided took the pressure off regular standouts Nathan Sobey (17 points, five rebounds, five assists) and Vic Law (10 points, 15 rebounds, four assists) who still contributed strongly but didn’t have to carry the load.

Bullets coach Andrej Lemanis liked so much of what his team delivered including resisting a fightback in front of the screaming Melbourne fans from United.

"There was some pleasing things out of this game obviously to come away with the win included and the way we started. But there was also some other things, we had 15 turnovers, we gave up 15 offensive boards and they were two areas that we knew that were strengths of Melbourne United," Lemanis said.

"I think we'd given up 10 offensive boards in the first half so it was a much better effort and commitment in the second half to that. And it was pleasing in that they made a hell of a run and Chris some of the shots that he made and the crowd was going nuts. 

"Good on them, Melbourne United and the Phoenix get eight extra home games as a result of this and it was good fun to play in an environment with the crowd that was going like that. 

"We showed some nice poise down the stretch to be able to overcome that by getting some stops defensively, rebounded well and then offensively did a nice job of attacking the basket. It was a great example of understanding where our strengths lie and everybody contributing their piece of the puzzle."

Goulding made a successful return for Melbourne knocking down 6/14 from long-range on the way to 21 points. But he did appear to be on minutes restriction and was sitting at times where he had appeared to be hot.

"It's good to be back but a very disappointing result," Goulding said. 

"I don’t know if I did a good enough job of keeping the other guys in the rhythm that they've been going at and winning games. There's the job of being back and doing what I love but there's the disappointment of not helping us continue on our winning streak."

Jock Landale added another 18 points and 12 rebounds with Mitch McCarron contributing 11 points and seven boards, and Yudai Baba was a spark with eight points, four assists and three steals.

It was the most stunning of starts to the game with Brisbane hitting the first 10 points before going on to lead 15-3 and 19-8. Perhaps the most encouraging start was that the first eight points came from Orlando Johnson, Tanner Krebs and Ty Harrison before Nathan Sobey and Vic Law got in on the act.

Chris Goulding opened Melbourne's account with a three after almost four minutes but Brisbane remained in control up 25-16 by quarter-time.

Brisbane romped away again in the second quarter opening up outscoring Melbourne 18 points to six in the opening five minutes, but United built some momentum just before half-time with triples from Barlow and Mitch McCarron.

That cut Brisbane's lead to nine despite their shooting of 63 per cent from the field. But Melbourne gave themselves a sniff by forcing the Bullets into 10 turnovers to go with 10 offensive rebounds to go for 14 second chance points to zero.

It was Melbourne's turn to then go on a big run to open the third quarter. It was sparked by Goulding who hit three triples in no time and the third of them turned into a four-point play. 

Jo Lual-Acuil then went on his own 8-2 run and suddenly United had their first lead of the game, but the Bullets pulled it back to be up 71-67 at three quarter-time thanks to Jason Cadee.

Goulding wasn’t done yet, though, and started the fourth quarter with two quick threes to put Melbourne back in front. He left the court again soon after but another 10-3 United run had them up four with five minutes remaining.

That's when Hodgson took over the game at both ends of the floor and his career-best performance helped Brisbane score 17 of the game's last 22 points to win by eight and move to the top of the NBL Cup at least for now.

Melbourne will finish the NBL Cup against South East Melbourne Phoenix on Wednesday and Illawarra Hawks on Saturday. Brisbane takes on Adelaide on Thursday and Sydney also on Saturday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 8
NBL CUP WEEK 3

BRISBANE BULLETS 96 (Hodgson 24, Cadee 19, Sobey 17)

MELBOURNE UNITED 88 (Goulding 21, Landale 18, McCarron 11) 

POINTS AWARDED – Brisbane Bullets 5.5, Melbourne United 1.5

BOX SCORE