X’s and O’s: Brisbane Bullets

Written by Melbourne United Media

As Melbourne United approaches the Hungry Jack’s NBL Finals, ensuring they take home as many victories as possible down the stretch of the regular season is crucial.

Before the defending champs welcome the Brisbane Bullets into John Cain Arena on Saturday, let's take a peek at some of the keys to success in this week’s X’s and O’s.

Hustle hard on offence

When United are moving, good things happen.

All season, the defending champions have been at their best when moving with speed, whether it be on the break off a miss, to the basket on back-door cuts, or around the rim for offensive rebounds.

These are all areas Melbourne should look to exploit against the Bullets, who have struggled on defence throughout much of the season (second worst defensive rating across NBL22).

Firstly, United have been scary for opposing defences all year in the open floor.

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Take the play above. Melbourne jump on an early chance to run off a Bullets turnover. As soon as Agada starts pushing the ball up the floor, he has three teammates motoring down the court with him.

This forces the defence to play conservatively and watch for the pass, allowing him to euro-step around Deng for the easy score.

When Brisbane are able to set their defence, Melbourne’s activity off the ball has created major issues.

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In their Round 14 meeting, United crashed the class for 13 offensive rebounds, like this one from Shea Ili in the clip above, which he quickly turned into a Chris Goulding corner three.

This season, 6.5% of opponents shots against Brisbane have come on the offensive glass. This number could very well grow on Saturday, as over the last four Rounds, United have had the best offensive rebounding rate in the league (34.3%).

Force the supporting Bullets to fire

Brisbane are at their best when they can find their shooters in rhythm.

Robert Franks remains one of the best shooting bigs in the league (2.4 three-point makes per game at 39.4%), and Jason Cadee has only improved since shouldering more of the scoring load without Nathan Sobey (2.3 three-point makers per game at 40.4% over his last 10 games).

The key for United will be to crowd Franks and Cadee when they catch it on the perimeter, and keep up elite hand-pressure when they come around screens with the ball.

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We can see how effective this pressure can be in the clip above. As Ili tags Cadee, he takes a pair of screens, both of which United meet with a hard switch, forcing the pass to Tanner Krebs.

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This is present again later in the game as Agada shadows Cadee all the way to half-court. When Cadee does get the ball on a hand-off, Jo Lual-Acuil Jr is already in his face as comes towards the rim, forcing a kick-out for a three-point miss.

If United can force the ball into the hands of the Bullets’ less capable perimeter shooters, they will be on their way to a positive result.

Tickets remain available for Melbourne’s final two home games of the regular season HERE.

The defending champs will host Brisbane on 16 April at 5.30pm, before welcoming in Cairns on 18 April from 7.30pm.