Newbill rises up
When the Australian NBL chattering classes get talking about the best imports in the league, the name of do-it-all Breakers guard DJ Newbill seldom comes up.
His shot isn’t exactly a work of art, he’s not especially athletic, he happily defers when his teammates are hot and he doesn’t make spectacular aerial plays. He’s more blue-collar than blue chip, but right now the league-leading New Zealand club wouldn’t swap their 25-year-old Philadelphia backcourt ace for anything.
Newbill showed exactly why he’s so valued at Atlas Place with another big-time performance as the 10-3 Breakers bounced back from their round eight misfire with a 96-89 home victory over the Brisbane Bullets at Spark Arena on Thursday night.
Tom Abercrombie was the headline act, making all five threepoint attempts en route to a gamewinning double-double of 22 points and 12 rebounds to go with a pair of blocked shots.
But Newbill’s supporting show wasn’t far off the mark. The rugged combo guard went six of 10 from the floor and two of three from range as he chipped in with 17 points, eight assists, five boards and three steals. He also excelled as the closer for the Kiwi club, scoring eight of the last nine points to very much ice the victory.
But with Newbill there is always more than the story of the statline. He is a master at sniping into the paint and finding the seams for the finish around the rim. He makes it look easy; but it isn’t.
He is also one of the best defenders in this league, and almost certainly top of that category among imports (closely followed by his Breakers mate Edgar Sosa). On Thursday night he was a big part of why star Bullets guard Travis Trice went three of 12 from the floor for just eight points.
‘‘We’ve got a lot of really unselfish guys in our team that really just let the game come to them,’’ said Breakers coach Paul Henare.
‘‘That plays a part in why we have different guys stepping up week to week. DJ has always been a guy who seems to feel the moment when we need a bucket or need to get the ball in the paint. He makes really good decisions with the ball in his hands., and just having that combination of Sosa, DJ and Shea in our guards rotations, having two ballhandling decision-makers on the floor at the same time has really helped us.
‘‘He’s a big time player, and though he’s not raved about and kinda flies under the radar a little bit, we love him and love what he does for us.’’
Henare was rapt with his team’s adjustments after their flat effort coming out of the Fiba international break, when a nine-game win streak turned into a two-game mini-slump.
‘‘We looked at areas of improvement we wanted to focus on against the same opposition. I thought there was very good improvement.
‘‘We picked up just under 80 per cent of our defensive boards which has been an Achilles heel for us the last few weeks.
‘‘And just the intent we played with was better. It was one of our higher paced games and the work Sos, DJ and Shea [Ili] put in against their press got us on the front-foot.’’
The Breakers will want to stay in attack mode as they head to Adelaide tomorrow to battle the third-placed 6-5 36ers. Joey Wright’s men play the highest pace in the league and the best way to combat that tempo is to take care of the ball, make shots and keep them out of transition.