Bullets remain positive amid injury battles

If Tyrell Harrison wasn’t able to return for the Brisbane Bullets on Wednesday night it might have been one more blow than coach Justin Schueller could handle, but he remains proud of how his group is standing up and just hopes their injury luck soon turns.

At no point all season have the Bullets had their whole squad available and from the starting five that Schueller envisioned coming into NBL25, Sam McDaniel and James Batemon are done for the season, along with Jarred Bairstow, while other key players remain unavailable.

The Bullets snapped a three-game losing run at home on Wednesday against the New Zealand Breakers, but they did so without Josh Adams, Keandre Cook, Rocco Zikarsky, McDaniel, Batemon and Bairstow.

Harrison was holding his own in his battle with Breakers giant Tacko Fall until he took an accidental blow to the head late in the first quarter and had to undergo a concussion test.

That might have been one injury too far for the Bullets to overcome, but Harrison ended up returning and helped quell the influence of Fall to be instrumental in the nine-point win that keeps Brisbane right in the top six hunt.

"It just was another thing to add to the list and it's kind of comical when you look at the injury list and it keeps going on the Bullets for a couple of pages," Schueller said.

"But at the same time, we've always talked about controlling what you can control, and a negative that we have to turn into a positive.

"Every time we've been thrown a challenge like this, something good has come out of it and tonight it was Casey going and dominating back on the wing, DA (Deng Adel) gets welcomed back into a key defensive role and as we move forward, they are things that will make us stronger and stronger.

"Whitey (Isaac White) comes in and has an impact and that's on the back of the few games he came in to start."

The Bullets will head to Melbourne on Thursday and settle in Gippsland ahead of the clash with the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Saturday night, which could be pivotal in their battle for a top six spot.

Schueller continues to focus on letting his team take it one day at a time and given the hurdles that keep showing up, that's all they can do.

"We keep talking about just owning our day and we have a travel day to go to Melbourne early because we're out in Traralgon, and that's a day I want the boys to just enjoy each other's company and clear their minds," Schueller said.

"Then we'll get to work again on Friday and for us the constant growth areas is if we can get our depth and right now there's question marks around who is genuinely available for that next game.

"Then it's about how we can keep taking steps forward in where we want to go. We know we have eight games left and five wins needed, and we're in control of our world. If we look too far ahead we'll miss that target, but if we own the day we know we'll be in good shape."

While Schueller will need to wait a couple of days to see if Cook and Adams will be available to play against the Phoenix, Zikarsky will make his return and the coach hopes they might finally start to have a bit more luck on the personnel front over the next month.

"One we definitely know for sure right now is that he (Zikarsky) had to have an X amount of time off and that's now in the past and we're excited to bring him back in," Schueller said.

"JA and Keandre it's too early to say after they just didn’t get up for this one, and we had to suit JA to make sure we qualified him. But as for where they're at, we'll know more once we get to Melbourne.

"One of the things we did this year was bring guys in that we genuinely knew all those pieces fitted together so the frustration is that we've never had all those pieces in at the same time.

"We're still excited about what we can go and do this year, but at the same time we need to get guys fully fit and healthy, and we'll just keep forging forward."