Bruton: 'We need to play for 40 minutes'

Adelaide 36ers head coach CJ Bruton said his side needs to play for the full 40 minutes after falling to Melbourne United 82-74 on Brett Maher Court at the Entertainment Centre on Sunday afternoon.

The 36ers held a 62-57 lead in the early stages of the final quarter, but United stormed home late after surrendering a big early lead.

“No one wants to be down, but to be able to fight back against a team like that is to take away key moments from key people and we weren’t able to sustain that for the 40 minutes,” Bruton said.

Adelaide was down 23-9 in the opening quarter, but showed resilience to take the lead 33-30 off of a Jason Cadee three-pointer.

“You have to show that you have got fight, every fan wants to see their team fight. We were up 15, JackJumpers were up 12, teams will have runs, but I knew we had it in us (to fight back),” Bruton said.

Sunday’s loss takes Adelaide’s NBL24 record to 0-2 after a 86-71 defeat on the road to Brisbane Bullets on Friday night.

Bruton said despite the two defeats, he can see his side is growing but need to vastly improve on defensive rebounding and execution down the stretch.

“There have been some improvements from the Blitz, it’s getting used to a feel to where everyone is at and clearly we had some more things to go through,” Bruton said.

“For the group right now, if we are going to win the game next week, we have to clean up some stuff.”

Adelaide face a tough double header on the road next weekend, flying to Perth on Thursday for a Friday night showdown with the Wildcats, before backing up less than 48 hours later in Sydney against the reigning champion Kings.

“We have to be sharp, and we have to execute the game plan, that will give us every chance to be successful,” Bruton said.

“Bryce is going to be Bryce, he’s always shown he will lead by example and (Jordan) Usher has been amazing,

“All their players that play around them have done their part and slotted in very well,

“Going on the road is another chance to gel and come together and hopefully put something on the board.”