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BRISBANE - The Ebi Ere basketball MVP bandwagon rolled on last night along with Brisbane's push for a top two NBL position as they crunched the New Zealand Breakers 125-93.
Brisbane (12-5) slipped passed Melbourne (11-4) on wins but the Tigers maintain second spot courtesy of less losses.
Their Christmas Eve blockbuster next Saturday, a grand final re-match, will be a battle for second behind Sydney (16-2) going into the New Year.
Ere was irresistible on Sunday, hitting seven threes, cutting through the key with some dazzling moves and pulling down 10 rebounds for a double-double MVP night out.
The Bullets are privately miffed at the lack of recognition afforded to Ere who despite his consistent highlight reel plays is still yet to win an NBL Player of the Week award even though he is the competition's leading point scorer.
Ere dropped in a lazy 23 points in the first half with a nine from 12 shooting display which included four of six threes as the Bullets slipped out to a 64-51 half time lead.
He finished with a season-high 42 points and would have threatened the half century had coach Joey Wright not sat him down for the last three minutes to give him a spell for next week's big assignment.
The athletic import opened the game with two trademark bombs but the highlight was his acrobatic spinning manoeuvre to the hoop in the first quarter.
New Zealand, who won their previous clash 127-126, tried to keep with Brisbane but found themselves 11 points behind at the first change.
They took the floor with both of their new imports Orien Greene and Derrick Alston sitting on the bench.
Alston only arrived in New Zealand on Tuesday and it showed as the 35 year-old former NBA forward pulled three fouls in 3m:41s of his first quarter.
Green, who fouled out midway through the final quarter had 20 points and seven rebounds and showed the benefit of one NBL outing before last night's game.
The clash was marred by soft fouls, robbing the contest of continuity and the fans of entertainment value.
In the end, Brisbane fans went home happy and Ere had another night out.
Ere shot the ball like a brick at training yesterday but was quickly into his stride last night.
"Yesterday I hit one shot in two hours but I got into a rhythm pretty quick tonight," Ere said.
Had he been listening to all the MVP talk of late?
"I listen to it," he grinned.
"But you still have to go out their and play like an MVP."
Wright said the Bullets had been fired up after their New Zealand born forward Craig Bradshaw was the target of a "derogatory" attack when Brisbane played the Breakers in Auckland last month.
Bradshaw turned his back on the Breakers to sign with the Bullets.
"The team was fired up after the campaign they ran against Craig," said Wright.
"It's not a good thing to do, attack one person and definitely don't attack a Brisbane Bullet because we're going to come back at you.
"Craig is a lovely guy and he chose to come to Brisbane and we wanted him to come here."
Breakers skipper Tony Ronaldson was critical of his team's defence, a view shared by coach Andrej Lemanis.
"We have to re-establish our identity because if we play like that, we aren't going to win too many games," said Ronaldson.
"I hope it (loss) hurts. I know how I feel, I haven't had too many 30 points losses in my career. "
- AAP
