A POWER outage may have made the NBL clash a bit more complicated, but Melbourne United left Nissan Arena having defeated the Brisbane Bullets by 17 points in a high-scoring clash on Thursday night.

In Mitch Norton‘s 350th, United played spoilers in the veteran guard’s milestone game, proving too good and ensuring they still maintain their record of not losing consecutive games in the past two years in a remarkable feat.

The drama of the game was boosted by a power outage with just over three minutes remaining in the clash, causing a delay in the match and the remainder of the contest to be played without a national broadcast.

Regardless of the 30-minute wait, Melbourne still emerged victorious to get its campaign back on track after a 34-point thumping at the hands of the New Zealand Breakers at John Cain Arena on Monday night.

Brisbane Bullets (103) def. by Melbourne United (120)

Despite the end result, it was the Bullets that got off to the better start, with Norton fittingly recording the first basket of the match. Keandre Cook racked up eight points in quick succession to help Brisbane jump out to an early buffer. However, Melbourne settled as the game rolled on, upping the tempo of the match to suddenly break out to a double-digit lead at the main change.

Melbourne was leading by 15 points when the power cut out at Nissan Arena, forcing a stop to the match. Despite the result essentially sealed by that point, the teams returned to the court later to play the final three minutes, with the visitors emerging 17-point victors.

It was an excellent shooting performance from United, who shot 57 per cent from the field and 50 per cent from three-point land, which was too much for the Bullets to match. Melbourne’s ball movement was also impressive, leading the assist tally 26-13 in an excellent display of the fast pace the team likes to play at.

The hero of the night was big man Robert Loe, who delivered one of the finest performances of his career with 30 points after being injected into the starting lineup in place of Marcus Lee. Loe stretched the floor to knock down six triples on eight attempts in an excellent shooting display. As expected, Chris Goulding had his way from behind the arc as well, splashing home five triples en route to 21 points for the match, while Jack White stuffed the stat sheet with 17 points (8/9 FG), 17 rebounds and five assists.

For the Bullets, Cook fought valiantly all match to keep Brisbane in the contest to post 23 points and five assists on 11/11 shooting at the free throw line, while Casey Prather was also impressive with 21 points of his own.