R16 Preview: Adelaide 36ers v Brisbane Bullets

When: 8.00pm (AEST), Saturday 1 May

Where: Adelaide Entertainment Centre

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

The last time
Brisbane 109 (Sobey 30, Law 22, Cadee 16) d Adelaide 104 (Johnson 29, Dech 20, Giddey 19) – NBL Cup Week 4, John Cain Arena, Melbourne

The 36ers and Bullets haven’t played since meeting in Melbourne at the NBL Cup back on March 11 with Brisbane in the middle of a hot run of form at that point winning a high-scoring shootout over Adelaide in a game that featured 213 points across the 40 minutes.

The Bullets put themselves in the hunt for some prizemoney with the win to open the final week at the NBL Cup and it was a dynamic offensive performance. But it was the 36ers on fire in the first half even without Isaac Humphries and with Brandon Paul still yet to be available. The Sixers put 62 points to half-time to lead 62-56 at the break.

But Brisbane was able to go up another gear in the second half on the back of handful of players standing up and they outscored Adelaide 53 points to 52 after half-time to end up winning 109-104.

Nathan Sobey finished with a remarkable game for Brisbane with 30 points, four rebounds and four assists while hitting 6/9 from three-point land. Now departed import Vic Law had 22 points while Jason Cadee hit 16 and another now gone import, Orlando Johnson, 13.

Daniel Johnson had a big game for the Sixers with 29 point sand nine rebounds with Josh Giddey putting up 19 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds, Sunday Dech 20 points and Jack McVeigh 18 to go with seven rebounds and three assists.

That was a third meeting already of the season between the two teams. It was a fascinating first two contests in the space of three days back in the middle of February. Adelaide won first up in Brisbane 85-70 in their first road game of #NBL21. Then two days later in Adelaide, Brisbane was playing away from home for the first time this season and turned it around to win 93-74 leading into the NBL Cup.

The now

If the 36ers or Bullets want to part of playoff action in #NBL21 then they need to start going on a winning streak and there's no better time than on Saturday night at Adelaide Entertainment Centre for that to happen.

The Sixers come into the game starting to lose complete touch with the top four with a 10-16 record while the Bullets reignited their finals aspirations with a win on Thursday night to improve themselves to an 11-13 record.

But at 10-16, there's no hiding from the fact that the 36ers just can't afford to lose too many more games of their 10 remaining if they want to be part of the finals. Already the best they can hope to achieve is 20 wins for the season so it's getting to the point where they virtually have to win all their remaining matches.

Saturday night signals the first home game for the 36ers since beating the Perth Wildcats at the Entertainment Centre back on April 10 in what was a tremendously impressive performance. They have won their last two homes having also beaten the Illawarra Hawks a week prior to that win over Perth.

So the Sixers know that they play better on their home floor and with only four games remaining from the last 10 this season, this shapes as a must-win affair and it just happens to be the 350th game in the NBL for captain Daniel Johnson just in case they needed any added incentive.

It was quite the impressively brave performance from the Bullets on Thursday night to beat the South East Melbourne Phoenix in Melbourne in what was their seventh consecutive match away from Brisbane. They had been in lockdown in Perth after losing last Friday night to the Wildcats before then being allowed to travel to Melbourne to take on the Phoenix on Thursday.

They arrived on a three-game losing slide and having lost six of their last seven to be starting to fall from finals calculations, but they turned that around with an inspired 94-82 victory. Lamar Patterson showed what he's still capable of with 27 points and seven rebounds and with Nathan Sobey, Matt Hodgson, Anthony Drmic and Harry Froling all along for the ride, there was a lot to like from the Bullets.

That win improved them to an 11-13 record but they still have this game in Adelaide and then next Saturday in Cairns to navigate to keep themselves in the top four hunt before finally being able to play in Brisbane again on Thursday May 13 against the Sydney Kings.

The stats

- As Daniel Johnson prepares for NBL game 350, he remains one of the most undervalued players in history. Right now among current players, he has scored 591 points than anybody else and collected 692 more rebounds.

- While Johnson has scored 5243 career points, his former teammate Nathan Sobey is on the verge of reaching 2500 points on Saturday night while wearing Bullets colours back in Adelaide. Sobey has currently scored 2498 points in his career with 15 of those with the Cairns Taipans, 1482 at the Sixers and 1001 with the Bullets.

- Lamar Patterson and Tamuri Wigness have started the past two games for Brisbane which ended a run games where the Bullets starting five solely consisted of former 36ers players – Nathan Sobey, Jason Cadee, Anthony Drmic, Harry Froling and Matt Hodgson.

- Isaac Humphries has not played in a win for Adelaide at the Entertainment Centre since the win over the Sydney Kings on January 30. Contrasting that, Brandon Paul is yet to play in a home loss for the 36ers. His only two home matches so far have been the wins over the Illawarra Hawks and Perth Wildcats.

The key men
Isaac Humphries – He will now be playing his third game back from his foot injury and the signs were encouraging last up against the New Zealand Breakers with 14 points and two rebounds. He had missed the previous 11 matches with the injury but up until that point was right in the hunt of MVP calculations for everything he was delivering the 36ers. He was a powerful offensive force but also a dominant defensive power with his ability to block and influence shots, and rebound. If he can start to get back to that early season form, he'll make the 36ers mighty tough to overcome.

Matt Hodgson – If Humphries is the key man for the Adelaide 36ers, then someone has to take it him from the Bullets and Matt Hodgson has the tools to do it. He can be foul prone, but it will be a fascinating match up any time he is left to battle one on one with Humphries at either end of the floor. He has enough moves and power to worry Humphries inside, and also enough size and shot blocking ability to worry him up the other end. But he has to stay on the floor to be able to do that.

The quotes

Daniel Johnson will play his 350th NBL game on Saturday night when the 36ers host the Bullets. It's a milestone he is proud of but when he reflects on his overall career journey in the league with everything he's achieved, it's still that elusive championship that stands out.

"I'm feeling pretty good at the moment and I can't complain about the way things are going," Johnson said.

"The championship is the one thing missing and that's the goal for sure. I've got a few more years left in me so with the coach coming in this year and the new program, and the group of guys we have then hopefully we can build and work towards winning that championship."

Adelaide 36ers coach Conner Henry couldn’t be more impressed with everything that he has seen from Johnson this season in his first chance to work with him.

"He's not only having one of his best seasons, but I think he's showing he has another 100 games in him left and who knows after that as long as he looks after himself," Henry said.

"Getting to 350 games is an amazing accomplishment when you think about it and he's done it without any real major injuries. He's just continued to rock up every day like he has this year, working hard and is delivering on what he does best and being a great teammate is testament to who he is. I'm just happy to be along for the ride quite frankly, it's been great."

Sixers guard Sunday Dech is looking forward to the chance to get back home and to make amends for last week's road losses to Melbourne United and the New Zealand Breakers.

"We definitely play better at home and we're looking forward to having a two-game home stand and playing well," Dech said.

"When you do come back from a road trip like that, you just look at your processes and fundamentals which you've established over the course of the season. You check them off and it's like a checklist about if we got certain things done. Then you plan the next week around that leading into the next game and the next opponent.

"Our best is definitely good enough and we've proven that time and time again, and we've shown also that our worst is not up to par. The whole scheme of things is that when you're good is to be really good but when you're not, is to just be off the mark and not miles away. We're just looking to bridge that gap and make our bad performances good enough to get over the edge as well."

Bullets coach Andrej Lemanis is delighted with the way Lamar Patterson is now settling back into his Brisbane team and hopes it continues to progress the way it is.

"He's going to get better obviously every game just in terms of his rhythm. When you are out for a month it's hard for one, so he had to come back from that knee injury and find the rhythm of the game again. You could tell even at practice a lot of his stuff was short after that but that's starting to come now with the work that he's been putting in," Lemanis said.

"And then there's also that integration into the team. The good thing is that he's played with us before and we have played with him, but he's playing in a different spot more this year playing more of that four spot instead of the three so he's getting used to not being in a perimeter spot. We are continuing to integrate him more into the group and we're starting to see it come together.

"The pleasing thing was in this game was that we got him some looks that he was able to take advantage of rather than him having to create everything off his own bat. That was a little bit where we went with him last year and in bringing him back, we spoke to him about how we have a team of talented players and we look best when the ball moves and when you are part of the ball movement.

"We want to help him with the game coming to him and I thought he did that in this game for the most part even though there were still times we got a little stuck and stagnant. For the majority of the game the ball moved and his teammates did a good of finding him. 

"The thing I like about Lamar is that he's prepared to screen, he's prepared to talk and make passes, and he's happy when his teammates do well which is pretty good."