NZ Breakers stumble again
The Breakers continue to run in the mud through a worryingly poor Australian NBL pre-season.
After being thumped by the Sydney Kings by nearly 30 on the opening day of the Australian Basketball Challenge tournament in Brisbane, Paul Henare’s men were only marginally better in a 79-68 defeat to a severely undermanned Cairns Taipans side on Sunday.
After being swept 3-0 by the Brisbane Bullets in New Zealand, the Kiwi club is now 0-5 for the pre-season and a million miles from where they’ll need to be when the real stuff begins on October 7.
Yes, it’s only the pre-season, but the lack of fluency, urgency and accuracy in the Breakers game will be a major concern for head coach Henare ahead of that regular season opener against the stacked Melbourne United outfit.
Experienced small forward Tom Abercrombie provided some much-needed offensive spark for the Breakers against the Taipans with a game-high 24 points (8/20 FG, 6/12 3PT), and import Akil Mitchell pitched in with 11 points (5/11 FG) and eight boards off the bench.
But there was too little of consequence elsewhere in the Breakers roster. Mika Vukona and Finn Delany added eight points and five rebounds apiece, new point guard Ben Woodside had four points, six boards and five assists and Izzy Tueta blew hot and cold en route to seven points, three rebounds, three assists and three turnovers.
Big men Alex Pledger (two points, five rebounds) and Rob Loe (four points, two boards) also remained somewhat underwhelming with their execution and have a lot to do to get up to pace over the next fortnight.
Both teams were well understrength, with injured perimeter players Kirk Penney (calf) and Corey Webster (hip and back) once again sitting out for the Breakers, while the Taipans were without a quartet of frontliners in Nate Jawai, Mark Worthington, Stephen Weigh and import Travis Trice.
The classy Cam Gliddon paced the Snakes with 22 points, while an energetic Damon Heuir poured in 13 of his 16 points in the final term. Breakers assistant coach Judd Flavell admitted to disappointment over another defeat, but said there would be no panic as they played a game of catchup through the pre-season with their belated start.
‘‘We’re not in a crisis situation at all,’’ he said. ‘‘This is just our third week together, and what we’re seeing is we’re just underdone at the moment. We have so much more to improve, and going through these situations and learning from the mistakes is part of that process.
‘‘Everybody here is in the mindset of rolling their sleeves up and getting stuck into it. That’s what we saw today but turrnovers hurt us and we weren’t able to capitalise on some shots we had around the basket.’’ Flavell highlighted the positive effort of Delany – ‘‘He’s given us good production and has really taken his opportunity.’’ – and felt the Breakers had come out with much better intensity after their flat effort against the Kings.
‘‘But we’re still not quite there in terms of putting the ball in the hole and we’re losing our way at times. We’re learning about who we are in these games and kinda still finding what our identity is.’’
The Breakers were slow out of the blocks, trailing 17-5 early and 21-15 at the first break, but worked back to within four points (42-38) at halftime courtesy of a much improved 23-21 second period.
The Kiwis were helped in that second quarter by a six-point injection of three power dunks by exciting young power forward Delany, while Abercrombie paced the Breakers’ first half effort with 11 points on four-of-nine shooting, including three of six from beyond the arc.
The Breakers closed to just a single point at the end of the third period, but ran out of steam in the final term as the Taipans rode home on the back of Heuir’s hot shooting. The Breakers wrap up the ABC on Monday with a clash against the Adelaide 36ers.