Rd 3 Preview | JackJumpers @ Bullets

The Tasmania JackJumpers held on for a gritty win at home on Thursday night and now have a quick turnaround to take on the Brisbane Bullets at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Saturday evening.

The JackJumpers opened the season with a home victory against the South East Melbourne Phoenix and a tight road loss to the Cairns Taipans before having eight days ahead of this Thursday's contest with Melbourne United at MyState Bank Arena.

Tasmania had played those first two games with Ben Ayre, Anthony Drmic, Bryce Hamilton and Josh Bannan while Majok Deng fractured a leg in that first up win against the Phoenix.

The JackJumpers welcomed back Bannan on Thursday night in the eventual 84-82 win against Melbourne while also adding injury replacement pair Biwali Bayles and Kody Stattmann to provide some extra bodies.

They now take that 2-1 record with them to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Saturday evening to take on a Bullets outfit who have also started NBL27 with a 2-1 record.

Brisbane started their season with home victories over the New Zealand Breakers and Illawarra Hawks before suffering their first loss on Wednesday night to the Sydney Kings. However, they did have 34 points in the first quarter against the defending champs and were still leading at half-time.

So both 2-1 teams now lock horns on Saturday evening in a fascinating early season match up with a chance for the JackJumpers to improve to 3-1 which would be a tremendous result considering the personnel issues already suffered early in the season.

After Thursday night's win against Melbourne, where Tasmania led by 19 points before giving up the lead late and then prevailing on a Taran Armstrong game-winning mid-range jumper, coach Scott Roth was happy to take the win and move on.

"One of the things I told the guys is that in about five or six days no one is going to remember that game anyways other than we got a W," Roth said.

"There was a lot to take out of that game to learn individually and our composure, and playing with better poise and so on and so forth, but the game obviously got quite muddy and a win's a win and we'll take any W we possibly can especially this early in the season.

"I thought he (Magnay) was outstanding, Ben Gold came off the bench and hit some shots for us too so we had enough guys chip in there and get across the line, but it was a very muddy game."

Not only was Roth glad to have Bannan, Stattmann and Bayles available for Thursday night's game and now again on Saturday in Brisbane, but it also made for a much better week of practice in preparation too with the extra bodies.

"It's just extra bodies for us obviously and this was probably the first week of practice where we've actually had a normal session in about four weeks of being able to play five-on-five every single day and having guys on the floor so that we could try to find some rhythm," Roth said.

"We've been playing all these small-sided games for I don’t know how long so to have those two guys obviously is extremely helpful and we're going to use them too. Our practice this week was as good as we've had but we have a huge amount to still get done."

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2026/27 | ROUND 3

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS v Brisbane Bullets

Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Saturday October 3, 5:30pm

Watch live on ESPN via 9GO, 9Now, Disney+, Foxtel, Kayo or Fetch