Bullets beat travel-weary Breakers in NBL

The travel-weary New Zealand Breakers made their return to the NBL but it was the Brisbane Bullets who made it consecutive wins with an 84-73 victory on Thursday night.

The Breakers opened their season with wins against the Bullets and South East Melbourne Phoenix before embarking on a three-game tour of the United States to play against the Utah Jazz, Philadelphia 76ers and Oklahoma City Thunder.

They had missed the last two rounds of the NBL season but were in Brisbane looking to remain the last unbeaten team in the competition.

Brisbane were fresh off their first win of the season on Saturday night against the Phoenix and were on top virtually the whole way, including opening up a double-figure advantage to start the second half.

The Breakers stayed in touch and Parker Jackson-Cartwright was at the forefront of that with another 20 points, seven rebounds and six assists to strengthen his early MVP claims.

However, the Bullets continued to answer every challenge, including an early three-pointer in the fourth quarter from Josh Bannan (15 points, nine rebounds, three assists) who had missed 10 of his 12 shots up to that point.

There was still another twist with the Breakers grabbing the lead with Mojave King (11 points, four rebounds, two blocks) scoring nine quick points for the visitors and and Matt Mooney (13 points, 6-of-17 shooting) hitting a three, but again Brisbane answered.

The home team scored the next eight points on the way to the 11-point win with James Batemon continuing his standout form since moving to the bench with 21 points on 5-of-8 three-point shooting.

Casey Prather had 13 points and five rebounds for the Bullets, and Tyrell Harrison 13 points and seven boards.

Bullets coach Justin Schueller was especially pleased with the defensive effort from his team.

"Any time in our league when teams aren't getting to 80 on the scoreboard, you have to be happy with the defensive effort," he said.

"They made some tough threes and we had a couple of breakdowns, but for the majority of time we put them into the shots we wanted them to take which is really pleasing after another good week at practice in preparation."

The Breakers fought hard but have no let up now, heading home to host the Perth Wildcats on Saturday but you couldn't question their effort.

They did have 16 offensive rebounds for 17 second-chance points with Sam Mennenga again fighting hard down low for 15 points and five boards.

Breakers coach Petteri Koponen wasn't sure what to expect from his team, but ultimately couldn't fault their effort overall.

"This is the first time in a few weeks I really didn't know what to expect with us going into the game because we didn't have too much time to practice the last two weeks," he said.

"I felt like we still had a chance to win this game and we didn't start very well, and overall didn't play well, but we had quality shots and had our moments."