A late power outage could not prevent Melbourne United extending their long-running NBL dominance of the Brisbane Bullets with a 120-103 victory.
A power failure inside the Brisbane Entertainment Centre with just over three minutes remaining delayed Thursday night's game for almost half an hour, but it didn’t change the trajectory of the contest.
Melbourne were leading 104-89 at the time before going on to score the 17-point victory once play was restarted.
Melbourne came into the game off a 34-point hammering at the hands of the league-leading New Zealand Breakers and the Bullets made a flying start in captain Mitch Norton the 350th NBL game.
Keandre Cook hit eight quick points to help them to a 10-2 lead but Melbourne soon got it on their terms at a faster pace before opening a double-digit first-half lead on the back of Chris Goulding and Rob Loe combining for six three-pointers.
Goulding hit his fifth triple of the game early in the third quarter before Loe nailed his third and fourth from deep later that period to put the lead at 16 before the final 17-point margin either side of the delay.
It's a 12th straight victory for Melbourne against Brisbane dating back to March 2021 and they are yet to lose consecutive regular-season games in the last 23 months.
United hit back from coach Dean Vickerman's biggest-ever loss on Monday night with Loe producing a 192-game career high of 30 points while Goulding put up 21 points and three assists.
They combined for 11 threes, with Jack White adding 17 points and Ian Clark 18.
Vickerman couldn’t have been happier with his team's response.
"Robbie's shot is something that we trust the whole time and we knew this game was coming so he got in a great rhythm tonight," he said.
"I thought CG was in a really good rhythm, Shea (Ili) came in and really pushed the pace, Whitey rebounded and we had a lot of people just doing what we needed them to do for the team."
Brisbane are 3-5 after a league-low eight games over the first rounds and without another game until next Sunday, with the loss further soured by what looked a nasty lower leg injury to experienced forward Jarred Bairstow.
Cook top-scored for Brisbane with 23 points while Casey Prather added 21 points and eight rebounds, Josh Bannan 14 points and milestone man Norton 12 points.
After his 350th game, Norton was focused on the positives the Bullets can take.
"That game tonight just proves that we can play alongside some of the top dogs in this league," he said.
"There's definitely areas that we can work on and have kind of been a common trait throughout this season, but at the same time it's fixable which is the positive sign."
