The NBL24 Round 9 got underway from Thursday evening, November 30 to December 3. Typical of the competitive rounds; there were jaw-dropping comebacks, slim victories, historical wins, and to some teams, disappointing injury news, all highlighting the key moments at this crucial stage of the competition. 

As usual, your prominent basketball pundits and reviewers in Australia were on the road to bring the latest fixture updates and highlights. To our fans and readers, do not look further. Keep it here for intriguing updates and crucial developments that made it to the headlines. 

Most importantly, all the 10 teams were returning for action after taking the mid-season break, which, normally, comes after round 8. Every team was thus, sufficiently prepared having had a free weekend to sit back, re-strategize, take stock, and ultimately steel themselves in anticipation of the massive 10 rounds ahead before this season concludes. 

General NBL24 Round 9 Score Lines 

The round’s last match between Illawarra Hawks and Brisbane Bullets kicked off on Sunday, December 3, 4:00 PM AEDT at the Nissan Arena. Bullets won narrowly with a 78-77 score evidencing a tightly fought fixture. 

The round’s results for other fixtures were as follows. 

• New Zealand Breakers 96–83 Adelaide 36ers
• Cairns Taipans 79–84 Brisbane Bullets
• Perth Wildcats 114–105 Sydney Kings
• S.E. Melbourne Phoenix 90–79 New Zealand Breakers
• Tasmania JackJumpers 94–59 Adelaide 36ers
• Melbourne United 103–115 Cairns Taipans
• Brisbane Bullets 78–77 Illawarra Hawks

Following the round’s conclusion, Melbourne United and Tasmania JackJumpers remain the league leaders with 10 and 8 wins out of 13 games. Illawarra Hawks are last in the standings with only 3 wins. Nevertheless, they might easily cruise past the Adelaide 36ers who have played two extra games and are slightly above them. 

Let’s now look into some exciting performances that provided cutting-edge talking points as the competitive spirit took the course in the entire round. 

Tasmania’s Biggest Win NBL History 

Tasmania JackJumpers, Milton Doyle shoots the ball during the round 9 NBL match against Adelaide 36ers at MyState Bank Arena, on December 02, 2023.

On Saturday, December 2, Tasmania JackJumpers recorded their biggest winning margin against Adelaide 36ers. The match took place at the distinctive Mystate Bank Arena, and more than 4,300 fans were thronging the stands, highlighting the huge fixture’s popularity. 

Unfortunately, the visiting fans left the stands heads down after JackJumpers humiliated the 36ers with an unforgettable 94-59 score_ A historical fete in the JackJumpers short history in the NBL competition. 

Quarterly, the results were as follows 

• 1st Quarter – 25/15
• 2nd Quarter – 20/8
• 3rd Quarter – 28/20
• 4th Quarter – 21/16.

At half-time, the 36ers were trailing 45-23 and were seemingly on their way to breaking the lowest-ever points record of 57 points which they suffered against Brisbane Bullets back in 1983. 

Luckily though, they managed to surpass the mark with only 2 scores, thanks to Trentyn Flowers who sunk it within 52 seconds to the final whistle. 

Resultantly, Adelaide’s score went on record as the lowest by any NBL team season, and the club’s lowest ever since the 2009/10 season, when the competition switched to 40 minutes per game. 

To add an insult to injury, the spirit-killing defeat came just when the team had suffered a road trip loss(96-83) to New Zealand Breakers at Christchurch on Thursday evening_the round’s opening fixture. 

To Tasmania, it was a record-shattering performance, though on the brighter side! The 35 scoreline margin was their biggest win ever since joining the league in the 2021/22 season. 

Narrowing down to individual performances; Milton Doyle, the JackJumpers import continued with his impressive run. He scored 20 points plus a game-high of 6 assists. 

His teammates; Sean Macdonald managed 15 points, including 3 of the 4 three-pointers while Jack McVeigh equally staged a strong performance to get 14 points. 

The dominant performance pushed Tasmania to second place in the league standings, out-positioning the Perth Wildcats. 

All eyes are now set on Dec 9 at 5:30 PM AEDT when they take on the 8th-placed New Zealand Breakers at the Spark Arena. 

As always, keep your tabs on the Australia Basketball News site and we promise to give you live updates when the round starts on Thursday night, Dec 7 with a match between Cairns Taipans and Sydney Kings at 7:30. 

Unstoppable Bullets Beat Cairns At Home 

Chris Smith of the Bullets controls the ball in the 9th round of NBL24; match between Brisbane Bullets and Illawarra Hawks at Nissan Arena, on December 3, 2023, in Brisbane, Australia.

In other news that made it to the exciting Australian Basketball League news headlines; Brisbane Bullets survived by a whisker to punish the Cairns Taipans at their home ground courtesy of the skillful shot by Chris Smith that broke off the stalemate to make it 84-79 in favor of the visitors. 

If you have been following our insightful updates on the league results, you are already aware of how high the stakes were in this fixture. Nonetheless, if you are just starting with us, let’s give you a brief hint on how the rivalry has been building up. 

This match-up was the first Sunshine Stoush fixture since the memorable date in Brisbane on October 7 where the renowned NBA star Aron Baynes was handed a 5-game suspension following unfortunate multiple on-pitch indiscipline instances as his team (Bullets) lost the match against Cairns Taipans for the 9th consecutive fixture. 

Fast forward to December 1, Brisbane Bullets had one thing in their minds; the redemption of the image after a series of debilitating defeats. They also wanted to shake off a series of 3 match losses in a row following their dismal performances in the round before the mid-season break. 

Expectedly, this was a high-voltage game with no shortage of tension. The opposing guards Nathan Sobey and Bul Kuol were equally fascinating but in the end, it was the Bullets who found the sneaky points to start the last quarter with 20 points on top. 

Overall, it was Chris Smith’s night to remember. He set the Bullets on the right path scoring a whopping 11 points of his 17 of the night in the third quarter. At the start of the final quarter, he added another triple to put the Bullets ahead with a 20-point margin. 

On their side, Cairns Taipans leveraged their import Josh Roberts to cover up for their earlier mistakes. He rose to the occasion, sparking the atmosphere at the Cairns Convention Centre by managing a finish at the rim to cut the lead to 10 points within 4 minutes of the final whistle. 

Eventually, it was a game of sloppy turnovers! Tahjere McCall’s 3-pointer further squeezed the margin to 8 points with only 2 minutes remaining on the clock. The spirited Taipans drilled yet another triple forcing another turnover to make it a 3-point game with only 16 seconds remaining. 

The last moments were overly dramatic, to say the least! The ball spilled loose from Brisbane’s possession but luckily, rolled out of a Cairns player’s foot, giving Nathan Sobey a chance to find the possession from the restart and eventually seal the game at the line.