Sobey unstoppable as Bullets shoot down 'Cats

Nathan Sobey is quite the man on a mission this season with the Brisbane Bullets and he maintained his career-best form to lead his team to hand the Perth Wildcats a first NBL Cup defeat with Friday's 95-92 victory.

The NBL Cup returned to Melbourne's John Cain Arena with the Wildcats putting their unbeaten record at the tournament within a season on the line up against an up and down Bullets in the first meeting between the teams this season.

Aside from a couple of brief patches in the second half with Bryce Cotton and John Mooney warming up for Perth, it was Brisbane on top most of the way and it was Sobey who ended up closing the door shut to finish his big night.

Sobey opened the game on fire with 11 first quarter points before picking up again with Brisbane's first seven points of the second half. 

He went on to score 12 points in the third quarter alone and then nailed a go-ahead triple with three minutes to go, which from there the Bullets never again trailed and went on to hand the Wildcats their first NBL Cup defeat by three points.

Sobey continues to put himself right up in MVP calculations and surely needs to soon be added to the Boomers Olympic squad on the back of another 31 points and four assists while hitting 4/7 from three-point land.

He got good support too with Vic Law delivering 23 points and six rebounds and Orlando Johnson 13 points, five boards and three assists with Matt Hodgson contributing eight points and nine rebounds, and Anthony Drmic nine points.

Despite all that, the Wildcats still almost pinched it for their fifth straight NBL Cup win. Todd Blanchfield had 14 of his 20 points in the first half before Bryce Cotton warmed to his task nicely with 20 of his 29 points in the second half to go with four assists.

John Mooney added another 20 points, nine rebounds, four assists and two steals while Mitch Norton had nine points and six rebounds.

Bullets coach Andrej Lemanis was a happy man with what he saw from his team at both ends of the floor.

"Certainly whenever you play Perth there's a few keys to it and the rebounding is a big one. They are the best offensive rebounding team in the league and it takes a commitment because they are all aggressive on the glass," Lemanis said.

"It takes a true commitment from the team against them in that area and we still gave up 14 offensive rebounds, but that was on 42 misses. That's good to keep a team like that to under their average so there was intent there along with holding them to shooting 46 per cent from the field. 

"That's a sign of the effort we put in defensively. And offensively I thought we did a decent job of being able to get to the rim, keep heat on them defensively and we were able to make some key plays at key times. 

"I thought we did a much better job of when we went at the rim of playing with poise and on balance making good decisions."

Wildcats coach Trevor Gleeson was pleased with the fight shown after a slow start but it's never easy playing catch up.

"We started the game 4-15 so that's not a world we want to live in and then we were playing catch up. I thought the guys played their hearts out and gave the effort, and everything that we wanted to do there," Gleeson said.

"There were a few concentration issues on the glass and some bad rotations for us, and silly fouls to put them to the foul line. It was a combination of those things but it was only three points so we gave the effort and just need to improve our concentration."

It turned out to be a game of great runs the whole evening and that started in the first quarter with Nathan Sobey and Orlando Johnson helping the Bullets to eight straight points and a 15-4 early lead.

But the Wildcats responded with their own 13-4 run in response including triples to Todd Blanchfield, Mitch Norton and John Mooney before triples from Jason Cadee and Sobey helped Brisbane to the 29-22 quarter-time edge.

The Bullets threatened to pull away a couple of times in the second quarter leading by as much as eight points with Sobey, Law and Johnson combining for 37 first half points as they shot 58 per cent from the field.

But with Perth shooting 7/14 from deep and Blanchfield putting up 14 points, the Wildcats stayed in touch cutting Brisbane's lead to four at the break.

Sobey then scored Brisbane's first seven points of the second half before Mooney went on an individual 6-0 run for Perth. The 'Cats then took the lead for the first time in the game with a Clint Steindl three and Blanchfield bucket.

It wouldn’t last long. Sobey led another Brisbane run of eight straight points and they were back up 73-68 at the end of three.

Law drilled a three to put Brisbane up seven early in the fourth but then Cotton answered in kind to spark seven straight Perth points.

The 'Cats took the lead soon after on the back of consecutive Cotton makes but then Law finished strongly and Sobey connected from downtown to put Brisbane back up. Anthony Drmic nailed one from deep to make the margin four and from there the Bullets held on to win by three.

The Bullets are next in action on Sunday against Melbourne United with the Wildcats playing the Illawarra Hawks on the same day.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 8
NBL CUP WEEK 3

BRISBANE BULLETS 95 (Sobey 31, Law 23, Johnson 13)

PERTH WILDCATS 92 (Cotton 29, Blanchfield 20, Mooney 20) 

POINTS AWARDED – Brisbane Bullets 5, Perth Wildcats 2

BOX SCORE