Beaten Breakers wait for reinforcements
The cavalry is coming, but it may be too late to save the New Zealand Breakers’ season as they threaten to sink without trace this campaign.
The Breakers tumbled to their third straight defeat, and fourth in the last five outings, 88-67 at the Brisbane Bullets on Saturday night to tumble to 4-10 for the season. Only one team, the 4-13 Cairns Taipans, sits below the Kiwi club on the standings and they are already six victories off fourth spot.
It is a long, long way back from here, and the Breakers look like they are going to have to muddle on undermanned and well short of the requisite firepower for at least another couple of weeks.
The club is clearly struggling mightily without the injured Corey Webster, the unavailable Rob Loe and the dumped (and injured) Lamar Patterson, who is now with the Bullets. What is more, they are stuck on a never ending road trip that is testing willpower mightily.
But help is on its way. New signings, in the form of young Aussie gun William McDowell-White and new import Levi Randolph, are en route and Webster is edging closer to a return from his knew problems. The issue is that the Breakers might be without playoff hope by the time they are available.
‘‘There is the short term and a bit of a longer-term view,’’ said coach Dan Shamir when asked about the reinforcements coming his way. ‘‘In the short term we’re playing Melbourne United in a few days and then we’re back here [in Brisbane], so we’ll have to play better, and we can.
‘‘In the longer terms we’ve got to survive a few games, win a few, and hope the three players who are coming – Corey is coming back, and the two players who are joining us in the next few weeks – will give us a few more bodies and a few more aspects to our game.’’ The Breakers are struggling mightily without the required offensive firepower to live with most clubs.