Breakers back in business
The Breakers needed something special, and it’s fair to say Finn Delany delivered on a sizzling scoring day at Spark Arena.
The 23-year-old springy Nelson forward, with a little help from some of his friends, provided the thrust that the Breakers needed to bust out of their early-season Australian NBL funk as they outshot the Adelaide 36ers 114-94 in Auckland yesterday.
The victory improves the Breakers to 2-2 for the season and drops Adelaide to 3-3 on a remarkably even table that has only one team (the 4-1 Perth Wildcats) with a record better than .500.
In other words, the Breakers are back in the thick of the race.
Delany, who had made a slow start to his season, was special. He was in attack mode from the moment he hit the floor in the opening quarter and Adelaide’s defence had no answer to his explosiveness and aggression.
He finished with a career-best 27 points off the bench on 12-of-18 shooting in just under 21 minutes on court. It must have pleased coach Kevin Braswell who had vowed to fight fire with fire against the fast-paced Sixers, and got a willing proponent in the young Tall Black.
Delany had plenty of help on an impressive night of offensive contributions throughout the lineup, with seven double-figure scorers all told as the ball moved the best it has all season.
The most notable of those contributions came from the underpressure Armani Moore who answered the critic who had him on the ‘‘endangered imports’’ list in emphatic fashion.
The muscular forward tallied 17 points (6/9 FG), 5 rebounds and five assists off the bench in what was easily his best showing of the season.
Corey Webster also found his stroke to add 16 points, fastimproving centre Shawn Long was heavily active to add 14 points (on 6-of-8 shooting), 9 rebounds and 3 blocks and Tai Wesley (15 points), Tom Abercrombie (13 points, 4 rebounds) and Patrick Richard (10 points, 6 rebounds) also found ways to contribute.
The Breakers shot an impressive 53 percent for the match, played at the pace they’ve been searching for and also won the rebound battle 44-38. They also defended much better in the second half when they held the 36ers to just 34 points.
Import Jacob Wiley paced the visitors with 21 points, but was scoreless after halftime, while big Aussie youngster Harry Froling pitched in with 20 points and 9 rebounds for Adelaide.
Next up for the Breakers are the Wildcats in Perth next Saturday.
At a glance
(Finn Delany 27, Armani Moore 17, Corey Webster 16,Tai Wesley 15, Shawn Long 14, Tom Abercrombie 13, Patrick Richard 10)
(Jacob Wiley 21, Harry Froling 20, Daniel Johnson 14, Anthony Drmic 14, Nathan Sobey 10). 1Q: 31-37. HT: 55-60; 3Q: 88-86.
NZ Breakers 114
Adelaide 36ers 94