Breaking point: Maor’s men must make home-court advantage pay in decider
A first grand final in seven years beckons if New Zealand’s Australian NBL representatives can hold their nerve at Spark Arena today, writes Marc Hinton.
Mody Maor’s rebuilt, rejuvenated New Zealand Breakers have been through a lot this 2022-23 National
Basketball League season, from Covid shutdowns, to nightmare travel schedules, to cyclones threatening to rain on their parade.
But nothing compares to the moment of reckoning they face at Spark Arena today at 6pm.
That’s when the Aucklandbased club will face the tenacious Tasmania JackJumpers in game three of their semifinal series to decide which team progresses to the best-of-five grand final. Given what’s playing out between the defending champion Sydney Kings and never-say-die Cairns Taipans, also locked at one apiece and heading to a decider tonight, it’s a match-up with an awful lot riding on it.
The Breakers have been through some lean years since the Blackwells sold out to an American consortium headed by Matt Walsh. They hadn’t made the playoffs since 2018 (when they were swept by Melbourne), and have not played in a grand final since 2016, when they lost 2-1 to the Perth Wildcats. Last year they went 5-23 on a perpetual road trip from hell, and nearly imploded.
But out of the gloom and despair has emerged a championship-quality group under the astute leadership of first-year head coach Mody Maor, a wonderful, swirling mixture of intensity, inspiration, intelligence and insightfulness. This is very much the team that Mody built, and it’s an impressive one.
Maor has needed to be special, guiding his club through a schedule that has varied between brutal and flat-out Machiavellian. It is never easy being a Kiwi team in an Australian league, but the folks at NBL HQ have seemed to take delight in steepening the road for the upstarts from across the ditch. Throw in the usual array of injuries, a Covid-enforced mid-season shutdown and the ravages of the Auckland, er, summer, and it has been, well, challenging.
But adversity builds character, toughness and resilience, and the Breakers will need all those qualities and several more to get past a JackJumpers outfit dripping grit, resourcefulness and flat-out determination.
Scott Roth’s outfit are so much greater than the sum of their parts that it almost defies belief, and Thursday’s series-levelling 89-78 victory in Hobart confirmed that. It is literally all to play for today, especially considering the
Kings might have lost their best player (league MVP Xavier
Cooks) to what looks a serious ankle injury, and the Taipans are battling away with their own most influential performer (Keanu Pinder) sidelined. Whoever comes through that series looks set to be, at best, battered.
So now it comes down to one simple thing for the Breakers: can they make home advantage, earned via that 18-10 regular season, and remarkable 13-win improvement from ‘21-22, count when it really matters?
So far in four games in these NBL semifinal series, a road team has yet to win.
‘‘It’s exactly what I told the guys in the locker room,’’ said Maor. ‘‘We went through a really tough season and played well through the tough season in order to earn home-court advantage. It’s a huge thing in the playoffs. I’m happy to bring game three to Spark.’’
Added skipper Tom Abercrombie, coming off an oh-fer in Hobart: ‘‘Home advantage is something you work for all season long, and we’ve seen how important it is. We were able to feed off our home crowd in that first game (won 88-68), and they did the same in the second. We’re playing where we want to be.’’
But there are other factors the Breakers have to get right. They have to be better against Milton Doyle, the Jackies’ primary offensive threat, who got away for 23 in Hobart. They have to cut back the turnovers, smother the three-ball and bring their own defensive intensity. Will McDowell-White has to figure out the doubles. They have to move the ball better (they had just 9 assists on 31 field goals on Thursday). And they have to bring help for the big three of Barry Brown Jr, Jarrell Brantley and Dererk Pardon.
And Maor has to trust his support cast more. He played Rob Loe, Tom Vodanovich and Rayan Rupert sparingly in Hobart. It’s a fine line, but the Breakers are at their best when everyone is chipping in their bit.
Abercrombie said players tell themselves all games are important, but series deciders take the cake. ‘‘It’s do-or-die and you leave everything you have out there. You don’t want to leave any stone unturned and these games are often determined by the smallest of margins. Hopefully we can win those effort areas.’’
Brown added: ‘‘I feel great, man. I know we’re going to respond, just come in and play New Zealand Breakers basketball. Nothing special. Just be us.’’
Nothing special. To be special. The formula is simple.
‘We went through a really tough season and played well through the tough season in order to earn home court advantage. It’s a huge thing in the playoffs. I’m happy to bring game three to Spark.’ HEAD COACH MODY MAOR