Breakers eye Penney boost
At a glance
Breakers coach Paul Henare is hoping a healthy Kirk Penney can spark his bench into action as they look to put last week’s false start behind them against the Sydney Kings.
The Breakers stumbled out of the blocks in their Australian NBL season opener with a sloppy defeat to Cairns, but have the perfect chance to redeem themselves on Friday in the first of two back-toback home games against the highly-fancied Sydney outfit.
For Penney, it was an uncharacteristically quiet start as the star veteran struggled with the early effects of a stomach virus, scoring just seven points with one assist in 26 minutes off the bench.
After being laid low at the start of the week, he has trained for the last two days and with Henare identifying production from his bench rotation as a key area of improvement, Penney has a pivotal role to play at Spark Arena.
‘‘Kirk is looking good today, we sat him out Tuesday but he is bouncing back from feeling quite sick, but he is looking sharp today,’’ Henare said.
‘‘Him, Shea (Illi), Finn (Delany), Robbie (Loe), they had a good practice today, they put the starting group under pressure and that’s what we need from them every single time they step on the floor.’’
Penney made no excuse for his display against the Taipans but was confident that so long as they trusted in their systems, the results would follow.
‘‘We are just trying to come together as a team and find our rhythm out there,’’ the 36-year-old guard said. ‘‘Wins will come, in practice we have shown we can do a lot of good things.
‘‘You don’t have to focus on the score, just do the work at both ends of the court and the wins will come.’’
Of course, it wasn’t only Penney who was off the pace against the Taipans.
Tom Abercrombie aside, the Breakers could not find a rhythm offensively as they shot 39 per cent from the floor and 47 per cent from the free-throw line.
Henare, though, has no doubt they have the firepower to foot it with the Kings.
He put the performance down to early-season jitters and has spent the week fine-tuning their offence as opposed to making any major changes.
‘‘We had it all there going into the game against Cairns, but the end of our execution wasn’t great, whether it was sloppy turnovers or not converting plays,’’ the coach said.
‘‘We got ourselves into a position to put points on the board but didn’t capitalise. After the review it was more about focusing on getting those good looks and knocking them down by staying true to who individuals.’’
The Kings also head into the game looking to open their season account after conceding a roundhigh 105 points in the loss to Adelaide.
The damage was done on the they are as inside as Sydney were outrebounded and conceded 48 points in the paint.
The Kings have won just twice in 14 visits to Auckland but with an impressive lineup that includes former league MVP Kevin Lisch, Boomers duo Jason Cadee and Brad Newley and veteran Todd Blanchfield, Henare is expecting a a fierce response from the Andrew Gaze-coached side.
‘‘They will be the same as us, no one likes losing and you want to bounce back and win. I expect they will be fired up for this game.’’