Breakers shrug off nightmare schedule for eighth win
We really want
to buy back the confidence
in what the Breakers are, and having a packed house
was great to see. For us to
keep doing this, we need
to be able to come in and
play great basketball
games. Breakers coach Mody Maor
Barry Brown Jr proved the difference as the New Zealand Breakers star caught fire in the fourth quarter to lead his team to a second win in Round 7 of the Australian National Basketball League, beating the Adelaide 36ers 89-83 at the Trusts Arena on Sunday.
The Breakers earned a hard fought win in Launceston over the Tasmania Jackjumpers on Friday night, but getting back to Auckland was anything but easy.
They didn’t arrive until 3am Sunday morning ahead of hosting a Sixers team attempting to back up after beating Melbourne United on Thursday, and it was a tight contest most of the way.
The Breakers were clinging to a twopoint lead at three-quarter time and up to that point Brown had just eight points on 2/11 shooting and having a tough afternoon.
That soon changed when he scored nine of the Breakers’ first 11 points of the fourth quarter including knocking down a pair of three-pointers.
Then in the final minute with the shot clock expiring, he banked in the clinching three with New Zealand eventually winning by six to improve to 8-3 on the season.
Brown ended the game with 22 points on 4/9 three-point shooting with Dererk Pardon just a beast at both ends for 19 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and three steals on 7/8 field goal shooting and hitting 5/6 at the line.
Will Mcdowell-white added 13 points and seven assists with Jarrell Brantley scoring 17 points to go with 10 rebounds and two steals.
After a horror travel experience getting to Launceston for Friday’s game and then yet another delayed return to Auckland just hours before tip-off, Breakers coach Mody Maor couldn’t hide his admiration of his team.
“It took everything we had. We got home at 3am, we were in the gym watching film at 1.30,” Maor said.
“This is not how you come in to perform and it’s really important for us to play well in front of our fans. We really want to buy back the confidence in what the Breakers are, and having a packed house was great to see.
“For us to keep doing this, we need to be able to come in and play great basketball games. Adelaide were in New Zealand 48 hours before we were so we needed our C game to beat their A game and I’m very proud of what we did.”
The Sixers are 4-5 on the season with Antonius Cleveland top-scoring with 17 points and six assists.
Robert Franks had 14 points and four rebounds for Adelaide, Kyrin Galloway a breakout performance with 13 points on a perfect 5/5 shooting, and Sunday Dech nine points.
Sixers coach CJ Bruton has been glad to see improvements this week, but know he needs more still.
“I thought we did a pretty good job and we are taking some strides and making some improvements in areas that we needed to improve on,” Bruton said.
“Just watching how our group is coming together, you’ve seen different patches of longer runs with different guys stepping up when we’ve had some of our main guys resting. We’ve had our bench guys step up from Kai Sotto to Hyrum Harris to Kyrin Galloway, they’ve all contributed when given the time.
“As any team, you’ve got to find the right balance of how much to play them and when, which is something I’m still working on but I like the fact that everyone is bringing the energy every single day.
“That’s picked up and we need to continue to make strides so we can continue to get better as the season goes on.”
The Sixers now head to Perth to take on the Wildcats on Thursday night while the Breakers head to Far North Queensland to play the Cairns Taipans on Friday.