Preview: NBL24 Indigenous Round v Tasmania in Launceston

The Brisbane Bullets head to Launceston looking to make it four straight wins on Saturday with a second battle with the Tasmania JackJumpers inside six days and it's a trip that Hostplus Head Coach Justin Schueller has had circled.

Schueller is no stranger to The Silverdome in Launceston having spent plenty of time there in a previous life when he was working with the Tasmanian Institute of Sport before entering the NBL leading up to taking charge of the Brisbane Bullets for NBL24.

So getting to play the JackJumpers this Saturday at the venue is something that Schueller is excited about but the focus is all on the team and with the Bullets attempting to put that four-game losing streak completely in the rearview mirror with the chance for a fourth consecutive win.

The Bullets won a third straight match on Thursday night back at Nissan Arena with the 108-92 victory against the South East Melbourne Phoenix in what was another standout performance.

In the win, Brisbane ended up having seven players score in double-figures with 11 players scoring in total. Showing the depth throughout the whole group, there was 50 points coming from players off the bench.

The Bullets also outrebounded the Phoenix 55 to 45 for the night, collected 22 offensive rebounds on the way to 21 second chance points along with ending up shooting 30/35 from the free-throw line.

On top of all that, Brisbane beat a South East Melbourne team who had won its last four matches in the NBL so it was an impressive win on a number of fronts with the Bullets now on a three-game winning run and a 5-4 record.

Saturday presents a return encounter from when the Bullets and JackJumpers locked horns on Sunday at Nissan Artena with Brisbane winning 90-87.

That was another game with plenty to like from a Bullets point of view with five players scoring in double-figures with captain Nathan Sobey leading the charge with 28.

Again nine players in total scored for the Bullets and without Shannon Scott and Aron Baynes there was a lot to like. Now Brisbane heads to Launceston for Saturday's game against Tasmania with Baynes now back and having a run under his belt from Thursday.

Hostplus Brisbane Bullets Head Coach Justin Schueller knows that it will be a fired up JackJumpers team they face on Saturday even if it's a venue the home team has won just once in over the four attempts in the last two seasons.

"They've been sitting there all week thinking about the last time we played them and even Scott mentioned that The Silverdome hasn’t been a great place for them," Schueller said.

"But it was actually my place of employment for a number of years so I'm looking forward to getting back there and so are the boys. We know they're going to be well prepared and will throw some different things at us, but for us now it's about if we can just do our job a little better.

"There's things that we're going to look at from this one again and there were moments we didn’t have our winning habits, and once we can put more consistency together we know it's going to be a really good contest down there. We honestly can't wait to get into it."

Early in the season and starts weren’t a strong suit of the Bullets, but that has changed over these past three games that they've won especially with the 18-3 opening in Perth against the Wildcats last Friday night.

Schueller has no doubt that the presence of Mitch Norton and Sam McDaniel setting the tone has been a big part in that as has the presence of Josh Bannan.

But it's the team chemistry and the pairings in each position that's working so well with Tyrell Harrison and Rocco Zikarsky in the five spot now joined by Baynes.

Then there's Bannan and DJ Mitchell as power forwards, McDaniel, Sobey and Chris Smith sharing those two and three positions, and Norton and Isaac White as point guards in the absence of Scott.

"Honestly I think it's been Mitch Norton and Sam McDaniel's defensive capabilities, and accountability that has helped us start games better," Schueller said.

"That's not to say that the changes are solely on them, but what it's been able to do for us is that we can give them assignments and it allows us to play the offence we want to from the start and continue to grow as we make our rotations.

"The other one is Banno coming in. He was our biggest target in recruitment, he knew how important he would be to our offensive and defensive structures, and having him in the line-up definitely has allowed us to have more consistency in the way we play.

"We like the rhythm we're finding with Chris off the bench too. He's an absolute weapon and that's a big reason we got 50 points off the bench was him coming in and giving us consistent contributions where before we felt we were having lulls at different times."

Speaking of Bannan, he has had a brilliant start to his NBL career with the Bullets after missing the opening five games of the season with a knee complaint.

He has now averaged 11.0 points and 7.8 rebounds over the past four matches including a terrific 17 points and 11 rebounds on Thursday against South East Melbourne on the back of 10 points and 10 boards against the JackJumpers.

Bannan is obviously enjoying the way the Bullets are playing now to be on a three-game winning streak, but he is fully aware that you can't afford to get too far ahead of yourself with the challenges that keep coming.

"I had someone tell me a couple of years ago that a huge thing in this league to never get too high and never get too low," Bannan said.

"That's something that Justin's preached and for us it's about red lining it and you just can't ride the wave too far up and down, you try to keep your emotions as steady as you can.

"We've won three in-a-row right now but the thing is you can't get too high with that. We have to go and play Saturday and we'll enjoy this winning feel of this game, but then move on very quickly to what we need to do to prepare to try and get another win on Saturday."

Bannan might be just four games into his NBL career, but after three years at the University of Montana and at 22 years of age, he's not your usual rookie.

His maturity is on display when he looks at ways he can still improve.

"Obviously the foul discipline is a big one and if you're putting teams to the foul line 42 times it's not winning basketball," Bannan said.

"I've got to also be a lot better defensive rebounding and boxing out my game, that was something big for me from that game where we gave up O-boards on free-throws. I'm going to look back and see the tape where it will be my fault a lot so there's things we need to tidy up.

"We did a great job offensively but we did give up 92 points and that's too many so we'll try to tidy up the defensive end going into Saturday, and have a great plan to give ourselves the best chance to win."

GAME INFO

Who: Brisbane Bullets vs Tasmania JackJumpers

Tip off: 4:30pm (AEST), Saturday 4 November, 2023

Where: The Silverdome, Launceston

Watch: ESPN via Foxtel and Kayo