AUS - Bullets finally ‘breakfree’

AUSTRALIA (NBL) - The Brisbane Bullets have taken a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five NBL grand final series with a commanding 113-93 victory over the Melbourne Tigers in Brisbane.

It was far from a walk in the park for Brisbane, however, with the Tigers still within six points with eight minutes remaining in the game. Much as in game two, when Melbourne blew the game open in the dying minutes, the margin was accentuated after the outcome had been decided.

Olympians CJ Bruton and Sam Mackinnon were again standouts, making big plays defensively, initiating the Brisbane offence, and attacking the basket and finding the open man when the defence collapsed. Bruton finished with 7 points and 10 assists, and played a near faultless game at point guard (0 turnovers), continually finding the weakness in Melbourne’s defence.

Mackinnon was named league MVP for 2007 prior to the game, a fitting reward for an outstanding all-around year, and an excellent career that has seen him runner up in MVP voting on two occasions. After a slow start in game three, Mackinnon recorded another near triple double (19 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists) to confirm his favouritism for grand final MVP.

Mackinnon and Bruton have performed this well all series, yet this is the first time in the playoffs the Bullets have broken 100 points, after averaging 115 points per game in the regular season. The difference for the Brisbane, who are sponsored by BreakFree, was their support crew were finally able to break the shackles and produce the same offensive punch that had been their trademark all season.

After being outscored 34-25 by the Tigers bench in game two, Brisbane’s reserves responded, not only contributing on the scoreboard (winning 35-28) but completely disrupting Melbourne’s offensive rhythm with their aggressive traps.

Adam Gibson, at 20 the youngest man in the grand final series, was outstanding with 12 points on 5/7 shooting, while Mick Hill, Mark Bradtke (12 points, 8 rebounds), Brad Williamson and New Zealand international Dillon Boucher (5 rebounds) all provided great support.

Stephen Black (22 points, 9/15 shooting) again top-scored for Brisbane, and surely must have cemented his position in the Australian team for the FIBA Oceania qualifying series. Dusty Rychart was also outstanding, particularly in the first half. After going scoreless in game two, Rychart tallied all 17 of his points in the first half and collected 10 boards for the game.

After a flying 10-2 start, the Tigers could find no answer for the Bullets athletic full court game. Ball handlers Darryl Macdonald (4 turnovers), Nathan Crosswell (2), Dave Thomas (2) and Rashard Tucker (6) failed to pass the ball through the press, and the Tigers regularly coughed up possession (22 turnovers) or initiated their half court game with the shot clock running down and the passing lanes denied.

When Melbourne did create open shots, they simply did not go down. Chris Anstey exemplified the Tigers reversal of form from game two, scoring just 9 points on 4/15 shooting after his dominant 31 point haul in Melbourne.

Reserve bigs Axel Dench (7 points) and David Stiff (6) also struggled, negating the Tigers massive height advantage. Credit for this, though, must go to the pressure Brisbane put on the Melbourne ball handlers, who simply could not run a settled offence and feed the Tigers big men in scoring positions.

Melbourne did themselves no favours either, regularly dribbling into double teams where the long arms of Mackinnon (3 steals) were often waiting to pry the ball away. Coach Al Westover made successful adjustments at half time of game two to cope with Brisbane’s press, and there is no reason why he can’t do it again before game four.

Westover pointed out after the game that the equation for his team has not changed, as it must still win at home and then pinch a game in the menacing Boondall stadium in Brisbane.

"They're the type of team that when they get up on you they're capable of blowing it out," he said. "They've done that to a lot of teams this year."

"But a loss is a loss - it doesn’t matter. We can't dwell on that. But we plan to be back on Sunday."

Dave Thomas (17 points, 9 rebounds), Darryl Corletto (10 points, 50% shooting) and Rashard Tucker (12 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists) contributed at times for the Tigers, but nothing less than a rounded team performance will suffice come Friday night.

For Brisbane, the focus is all on wrapping up their first title in 20 years in Melbourne, and coach Joey Wright believes a similar performance to game three will do the job.

"We did a better job of keeping them off the boards in the periods that we needed to,” he said. “That allowed us to get out more and play our style of game."

The feeling in basketball circles is that Brisbane unlocked the playoff key in game three, and Melbourne will not be able to resist the scoring wave come Friday. The final margin was not a reflection of the tough nature of the game, though, and the refereeing allowed Brisbane to be very physical on defence.

A slight shift in interpretation in front of Melbourne’s deafening fans could well be worth ten points, and few would bank on Anstey having two poor games in a row. This series was tipped to go the distance from the outset, and it is hard to see how this has changed. Watch out for a Melbourne win on Friday and a mouth watering game five in Brisbane on Sunday.

Brisbane Bullets 113 (Black 22, Mackinnon 19, Rychart 17)
Melbourne Tigers 93 (Thomas 17, Hoare 14, Tucker 14)
@ Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall. Crowd: 7539.

Paul Kennedy
FIBA Official Correspondent in Australia