Breakers misfire against Bullets

The Breakers keep finding ways to lose basketball games as they dig their way into an ominous hole in the Australian NBL.

The Kiwi club completed a miserable third round of the new season by sinking to an 88-82 defeat at Andrej Lemanis’ Brisbane Bullets on Saturday night, their third loss on the bounce and second of the weekend.

They were well beaten at home on Thursday night, 92-78, by the Sydney Kings and now sit second from bottom on the standings with a 1-3 record. It is early days, but in a very tight league it is dangerous territory for the Breakers to occupy.

Once again the Kiwi club gifted the result away with one strikingly poor aspect of their game. On Thursday it had been their 17 turnovers and an 18-2 advantage to the Kings in points off the giveaways that had spelt the difference.

Against the Bullets free throws were the big disparity. At halftime, with the Bullets leading 50-37, the home club was a perfect 19-of-19 from the charity stripe, with the Breakers a feeble one from three. At game end the hosts had converted 23 of their 27 visits to the foul-line (85 percent), while the Breakers were a wayward nine of 19 (a woeful 47 percent).

Chief perpetrator was active forward Akil Mitchell, who spoiled an otherwise excellent outing (20 points on nine-of-12 shooting, four rebounds, two steals) by making just two of his six visits to the line. Tom Abercrombie had a one-forfour return.

‘‘Obviously the conversion was less than ideal,’’ said coach Paul Henare afterwards.

The Breakers again had a solid game on most of the stat sheet, shooting 50 percent from the floor (33/66) and 46 from deep (7/15) and actually winning the turnover battle by two. These numbers would normally deliver you a win.

But they allowed the Bullets to shoot 50 percent (overall and from deep) as well with some at times passive defence, and lost the rebound count 35-30.

Much like their defeat in Perth, they put in a big third quarter (26-14) to play their way back into the game, but after briefly hitting the lead in the fourth (67-66 on a Kirk Penney triple) they let things slip with a limp closeout.