Breakers hoping for late charge to finals

AS RUMOURS reverberate that Tall Blacks star Kirk Penney is ready for a return to the Breakers next season, the Australian NBL champions of the past three years steel themselves for a late playoff charge.

Friday night’s 96-78 victory over the Cairns Taipans left the 9-12 Breakers with a sniff of a top-four finish. They have seven games left to catch either the 10- 9 Sydney Kings, the 12-9 Melbourne Tigers or the 13-8 Adelaide 36ers.

Right now next season is the furthest thing from their minds, but the moons seem to be aligning for Penney to return and finish his pro career in his home town.

Penney, currently playing in Turkey, is said to be keen on a return to the club he led to the first of their three straight championships and is in regular contact with Breakers owner Paul Blackwell. The departure of 38-year-old veteran guard CJ Bruton should also clear up the cap and points room to fit him back in.

Breakers’ management are not commenting about next season’s roster moves at this stage, especially with such an important stretch coming up.

Next weekend they travel to Wollongong and Adelaide for an away double that could make or break their playoff push.

‘‘ It’s a big weekend,’’ coach Dean Vickerman said. ‘‘ Wollongong is what we think about straight away. They just smashed Adelaide ( and Townsville), and are always tough to beat at home. Adelaide have got a tough weekend at Perth and Melbourne, and it’s not a bad time to play both those games.’’

The Breakers certainly have their offensive game going, averaging over 100 points a night over their last four outings. Gary Wilkinson is on fire, going for 21 points and over six boards a game since coming in as a starter postChristmas.

On Friday

night

Wilkinson

(22 Steven Adams, the first Kiwi to participate in the NBA’s All-Star weekend activities, made a typically low-key contribution to yesterday’s Rising Stars Challenge in New Orleans. Adams finished with six points on a perfect three-for-three shooting and added two rebounds, two steals and four blocks in 17 minutes for Chris Webber’s lineup who were pipped 142-136 by Grant Hill’s team in a clash featuring the NBA’s best rookies and sophomores. Adams, who shone despite an allnight flight following a late LA game, told reporters in New Orleans he was thriving in his Oklahoma City Thunder backup role. He shrugged off his historic All-Stars debut, telling reporters he had a long way to go to match sister Valerie’s feats. ‘‘She has two Olympic gold medals.’’ points, nine rebounds) and Tom Abercrombie (21 points on sevenof-10 shooting) led the Breakers in another strong all-round effort.

‘‘ They are very potent offensively,’’ Taipans coach Aaron Fearne said. ‘‘They move the ball, get it through hands, spread you out, and shoot the ball very well. They’re very talented, very experienced and they know it’s pretty important this time of year.’’

Vickerman said he wanted his team to tap into the emotions being displayed by Wilkinson and stand-in big man Casey Frank over these remaining games.

‘‘ We need it every game,’’ he said. ‘‘We bottled it well [against Cairns]. We had the emotion last week on the road, had great little momentum bursts but there was always something that stopped it a little bit.’’

Frank, who had nine points, four assists and one throwback alleyoop dunk, challenged his teammates to wear their hearts on their sleeves from here on in.

‘‘When you’re playing together as a team in a difficult position, getting fired up and being emotional about it is something you have to do.’’