Schueller backs Bullets

Brisbane Bullets coach Justin Schueller remains confident that getting some bodies back, starting Friday in New Zealand, will help them continue to stay in the race for a top six finish over the last three NBL rounds.

Just as the Bullets were building some impressive momentum by beating the Adelaide 36ers on the road back on Christmas Eve, things have spiralled and it's all coincided with a horror run with injuries.

Having already seen Jarred Bairstow, Sam McDaniel and James Batemon ruled out for the rest of NBL25, over the last eight games the Bullets haven’t been able to come close to getting their full squad on the floor.

Leading scorers Keandre Cook and Casey Prather have now missed one each while Deng Adel has missed five, Rocco Zikarsky seven, Tyrell Harrison four, Josh Adams three and Emmett Naar three.

That doesn't factor in the players pushing through niggles too and the result has been the Bullets losing seven of those eight matches including the past four by an average of 28 points.

The Bullets players available gave their all on Monday night in Wollongong, but not having Prather, Harrison, Adel, Zikarsky and Naar meant they couldn’t go with the Hawks who put up 121 points on them with 37 assists to win by 32.

Despite that, Schueller remains confident that there's still hope for Brisbane to reach the Play-In Tournament if they can hit back on Friday away to the Breakers.

Schueller has guaranteed that Prather will return from a sore ankle for that game while there's a chance all of Harrison, Adel and Naar are available as well.

On the back of that, Schueller has full faith in his squad they can go on a winning run to grab a spot in the top six.

"I'm trying not to look at the margin in this one and instead focus on our processes, and how we went about it," Schueller said.

"We didn’t run a set all night, it was about ball movement and how we tried to find each other and I'm really pleased on that front.

"I'd like more shots to go down and I thought we had some really good paint to our looks, and that's what matters to us. We know we need four wins and we have four games to go, and Casey going out for this one was about keeping this thing alive down the stretch.

"We're as confident as anything that as we get bodies back for this next one we can start a mini run here and get back on track."

Going back to before Christmas when the injuries struck, the Bullets were playing as well as anyone having won five of six games and scoring 111.6 points across those wins with the offence flowing nicely.

That was only a month ago so Schueller has reason to be optimistic they can quickly rediscover that form as the players who have been missing filter back in.

"To me as we get bodies back I'm fully confident we'll be able to get this thing going for longer," he said.

"Once we can get it going for longer I feel confident with what we can do. We know we're still alive and what we'll have in the room with some bodies back even though we've been dealt a poor hand lately.

"But now our mindset goes to being able to do something special here, and that's where we want it to be."

One of the challenges that has limited the Bullets ability to battle through the injuries and come up with some different strategies for the different looking playing group has been an inability to practice together over the past few weeks.

Adams arrived as a replacement for Batemon in time to play his first game back on January 4 against the Sydney Kings, but he did hurt an ankle in that first game and has been battling through.

Then with a combination of a lack of time in between games and healthy bodies, the Bullets haven’t been able to practice once properly with Adams so getting a session in back in Brisbane before heading to Auckland has Schueller excited.

"We travel back tomorrow and we'll actually get to practice which we haven’t had for a while on Wednesday, and then we'll travel to New Zealand on Thursday," Schueller said.

"We're excited to get back to our full squad and we've got a really good rehab crew who are progressing well too, and when they are around the building as well it's a positive environment.

"That's what is important right now is us getting everyone in the one place together, get our prep work and we'll go over there expecting to win like we always do. I'm excited for what that challenge will look like."