Time is now for shooting start to campaign

The NBL24 season starts on Friday night for the Adelaide 36ers with a trip to Brisbane to face the Bullets at Nissan Arena from 7pm.

Both sides have had stark contrasts leading into the NBL24 campaign, but Adelaide 36ers head coach CJ Bruton says you should read nothing into pre-season results.

“You look at some teams now and everyone is saying ‘oh, they’re in’, just like we were supposed to be in last year, but everyone controls their own destiny and how we play and get to our end result,” Bruton said.

“The race starts now, everyone is going to be jockeying for position.”

Adelaide 36ers captain Mitch McCarron expects the Bullets to come out firing and wants his squad to confront Brisbane head on come Friday night.

“They are a tough squad, I expect them to be good really early in the year, they are ready to go,” McCarron said.

“But I think if we play the way we want to play with our tempo and our style, we can get a win as well.”

Bruton expects a different 36ers side to face the Bullets from the one which lost 103-78 to Brisbane at The Lights Community Centre earlier this month.

“We were playing with four guards against Brisbane last time, we are going to be totally different,” Bruton said.

“This has been a great preparation; we have shown some growth and it’s better to be kicked when we got kicked.”

McCarron said off-season recruit Jason Cadee, who will play his first NBL match back as a 36er against his old side, is pumped for the contest.

“He’s excited and he’s glad he’s back in Adelaide and he has got a good leadership role with us this year and been playing some really good basketball, so I expect him to be fired up,” McCarron said.

The 36ers captain said the side has seen all the NBL24 pre-season predictions and will use the commentary as some extra fuel for the upcoming campaign.

“Yeah sure, why not, it doesn’t hurt to have some extra motivation, you know we have to learn our lesson from last year where we were picked to finish up high and couldn’t handle that within ourself,” McCarron said.

“This year is all about us, we must own our won accountability and play hard every single day.

“We are going to have to play in a different way, we don’t have a freak athlete like a Cleveland, we can’t rely on the shot making or playmaking at times.

“But we have different guys with different threats though, we have seen what Jacob Wiley can do and I think Trey Kell is set for a massive year.”

STATS THAT MATTER

• Mitch McCarron was just 10 points away from 2000 NBL career points.
• The 36ers have lost each of its last seven season openers.
• Adelaide is ranked 1st in the league for Q4 points per game last season (23.7).
• Brisbane has won each of its last four home games against Adelaide.
• Aron Baynes has a career average of 11.3 rebounds per game against Adelaide - equal-most against any opponent.
• Nathan Sobey has a career average of 18.0 points per game against Adelaide - most against any opponent.
• DJ Mitchell ranked 1st amongst qualified players for 3PT% (44.4%) last season.