What 50-point haul means to James Batemon

With his fiancé Nickayla and three-year-old son Jay sitting in the crowd at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre, James Batemon achieved a feat that would fill his family with pride. 

The 27-year-old produced a record-setting performance, with 51 points on 19/28 from the field, 9/15 from three-point land and 4/6 at the free-throw line in the win over Perth. 

He became the first Bullets player to reach 50 points and to make nine three-pointers in a 40-minute game, along with being the first player since Chris Goulding to reach the half-century.

Batemon had never scored more than 34 points in his professional career previously, so admits he was nervous about breaking the 40-point barrier, but the nerves were all gone as he chased the magical 50.

"Somebody did come over to mention it, I'm not going to mention who, but once they started mentioning it you could see at the end of the game I started taking some deep shots to start gunning for it," Batemon said.

"I don't know the NBL record, but I know it was the Bullets record and that's something else man. My teammates showered me after the game and that's why I'm in this (warm-up top) instead of my jersey.

"You can't get too high or too low, but honestly I can't tell you where I'm at right now with how excited I am."

Even though Batemon didn’t have an ideal start to his NBL career while starting as the point guard, once he moved to the bench to come on and provide a shooting and scoring punch, things have been beginning to click.

That included three games of 20 points or more along the way, but one thing he always knew was that he had the full belief of his teammates and coaching staff.

"Even though I wasn’t performing up to the level, they still supported and had faith in me," Batemon said.

"Nobody dropped their head or came to me in any type of way, they just kept believing in me, no matter if I was coming off the bench or starting.

"They still said the same thing and the support hasn’t changed from my team, and that's one thing I'm grateful for, is that they didn’t lose faith in me and neither did the coaching staff.

"Maybe we changed some stuff up, but they always knew I was a capable scorer and just kept putting life into me, and I thank them for it because I'm trying my best to give it back."