United hold out Bullets after late Adams heroics
Chris Pike |
Jaylen Adams almost sparked the Brisbane Bullets to what would have been a miraculous fightback but Melbourne United did enough to hold on for a 95-86 victory to stay perfect this NBL season.
Chris Goulding started his NBL career on the 2007 championship team as a development player at the Bullets and in just his second appearance of this season after a quad injury, torched the hosts at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre in the first half on Friday.
The United sharpshooter had 15 points including three late triples that saw him overtake John Rillie to sit alone in third position for long-range makes across his 479-game career.
Melbourne were in control by half-time, leading 55-37 after a 10-1 start, and were up 20 midway through the fourth quarter.
That’s when former league MVP Adams fired the Bullets. Having been relegated to the bench for Brisbane’s two games this week after a slow start to the season, he found his aggressive best.
The Bullets went on an 18-1 scoring run to close to within three with Adams scoring all but three of those points, but Melbourne held them out.
Milton Doyle scored eight of his 17 points in the last two minutes for United to win by nine with Goulding finishing with 22 points and Tanner Krebs 16.
Import guard Tyson Walker had just five points on 1-of-10 shooting, but had a United record eight steals along with six assists as his team improved to a perfect 6-0 record.
United coach Dean Vickerman was pleased with how Walker still contributed and is looking forward to how he’ll come out at home to the New Zealand Breakers on Sunday.
“He’s young and he still had some good looks tonight, but if he ends up with 10 points with the eight steals and six assists, we’re talking about his game a little bit differently,” he said.
“I’m sure he’s looking forward to Sunday for our multicultural round game. I’ll get him an early look that I’m sure he’ll knock in.”
Brisbane are 2-5 and copped another injury blow with NBA championship winner Alex Ducas suffering a lower leg injury two minutes into the game with Sam McDaniel and Mitch Norton already sidelined.
Adams finished with a season-best 29 points and five assists while Casey Prather continued his sparkling form with 26 points, seven rebounds and four steals, and big man Tyrell Harrison added 16 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks.
Bullets coach Stu Lash never doubted that Adams would respond well to coming off the bench.
“Jaylen’s a professional and he understands why the decision was made, and in these two back-to-back games we didn’t practice in between after playing really well in Perth with a real pace and effort and pop to it,” he said.
“So we just ran it back and he understood, and he still plays 31 minutes tonight and he really turned it on down the stretch which is what we need from him.”
AAP
