The Brisbane Bullets have willed their way to a 107-104 NBL victory over the Cairns Taipans, but their gritty triumph came at a cost with import James Batemon suffering a hamstring injury.
Batemon, who made headlines last month when he scored 51 points against Perth, pulled up lame, clutching his left hamstring in the first minute of the fourth quarter at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Friday night.
Fellow imports Casey Prather (35 points) and Keandre Cook (30) starred for the Bullets (8-8), who leapfrogged South East Melbourne and Tasmania into fifth spot.
Prather overcame an injury scare himself, joining Batemon on the bench for two minutes in the last quarter with back soreness, before finishing the game.
"A lot happened tonight that we weren't ready for," Brisbane coach Justin Schueller said.
He added it was "too early to really know" the extent of Batemon's injury, but that "any time a guy can't come back on the court, it's not a good sign".
"To find some resolve and get through it, I'm just proud that we stayed with it and found a way," he said.
Americans Rob Edwards (27 points) and Pedro Bradshaw (22) led the charge for the bottom-ranked Taipans, who showed grit despite crashing to their 13th successive defeat.
After Alex Higgins-Titsha buried a late three to trim Cairns' deficit to three points with 6.7 seconds remaining, Brisbane left the door ajar by missing three free throws in the last three seconds.
However, Edwards' midcourt prayer to send the match into overtime was long.
The Taipans were on song early, draining four triples in a 14-0, 104-second burst to turn a 13-8 deficit into a 22-13 cushion.
Bradshaw scored 10 points without a miss in the first term for the hosts, who were 7-of-9 from downtown.
At the other end, the in-form Prather poured in 13 for the Bullets, who closed Cairns' edge to 30-29 when Isaac White drilled a three on quarter-time.
Edwards scored 10 in the second term and shot 66 per cent for the half, but a plethora of turnovers denied the Snakes control.
Cook, held scoreless in the opening frame, stepped up with 15 for Brisbane in the second, capped by a three-point dagger on the half-time siren to put the Bullets in front, 56-54.
Prather added 13 more points in the third, including three straight treys and a baseline dunk to help the Bullets inch ahead 81-80 at three-quarter-time.
Despite Batemon's injury and Prather's temporary absence, the Bullets did just enough to stave off the upset and claim a hard-fought Sunshine Stoush.
"When you look at the box score, what stands out is points off turnover (30-10 to Brisbane)," Cairns coach Adam Forde said.
"We coughed the ball up, made silly errors and they capitalised.
"The second-chance points - they got 16 more shot attempts than us and that was on the back of the o-boards."
