Breakers need to deliver in Sydney
Now back to the basketball. The Breakers headed to Sydney for today’s pivotal ANBL encounter against the Kings with some wellchosen words from ‘‘miracle man’’ Akil Mitchell no doubt ringing in their ears.
It’s to be hoped Mitchell spoke wisely when he addressed his team-mates before they left for Sydney yesterday without him, as the 24-year-old American forward, and one of their most consistent performers all season, remained behind to let his battered eye heal.
The now 12-13 Breakers need all the inspiration they can get as they look to salvage their top-four hopes in a must-win clash against the Kings today (5pm tipoff).
Given they have runaway league leaders Adelaide (away) and the stacked Melbourne side (home) to come after Sydney, you have to figure Paul Henare’s men must get their record back to .500 at the end of this round.
Who knows? Maybe a 14-14 final mark might sneak them in to the playoffs on a countback, but if they’re to control their own destiny they must get to 15 wins. That means finishing this round a lot better than they started it at the NSEC on Thursday.
The dramas around Mitchell’s horrific, and highly unusual, injury in Thursday’s 94-81 defeat to the Cairns Taipans at the NSEC have rather taken on a life of their own in the hours and days that followed that occasion.
Mitchell, of course, made what he, and others, were calling a ‘‘miracle’’ recovery after having the eyeball poked out of his head in an incident early in the final quarter that left his team-mates shellshocked, and no hope of hauling in an eight-point deficit at the time their popular forward went down in such distress.
His vision is intact, and damage to the eye minimal, with specialists confident he will make a full recovery. He’s even a chance to play against Adelaide, and says he won’t fear a comeback so soon after such a gruesome injury.
But the Breakers have to find a way to win without Mitchell in Sydney, and bounce back from the dark place they found themselves in at the NSEC on Thursday night.
They were clearly distressed at the nature of their colleague’s injury, and though they decided to box on with the game, closing to within six points on the two freethrows awarded in the wake of the poke to the American’s eye, they soon crumbled. Even Taipans coach Aaron Fearne admitted he felt sorry for them.
Mitchell bounced back in spectacularly good humour when he met the media on Friday, even joking about the incident that he acknowledged could have been so, so much more serious than it was. But he also expressed hope that his team-mates could recover their poise for Sydney, and get this playoff push back on track.
Clearly Mika Vukona − bruised and battered though he is − is going to have to carry a load as the remaining specialist power forward. But Kevin Dillard is going to have to be much better than he was on Thursday as are Paul Carter and big men Rob Loe and Alex Pledger who were non-factors against the Snakes.
Assistant coach Mike Fitchett vowed his men would regroup, reload and hopefully resuscitate their season.
‘‘We’ve got great veteran leaders who have been around the traps a long time, and the team is really close-knit. We’ve been through so much adversity this year but those guys will lead, Pauli will lead, and we’ll come out on Sunday, put our hard-hats on and try to do the business.’’