Breakers set for Cheatham boost as they look to sustain NBL turnaround
At the halfway stage of the Australian NBL season, Mody Maor’s New Zealand Breakers still have a lot to do. The good news is that they’re about to get some much-needed help to climb that hill.
The Breakers took crocked star import forward Zylan Cheatham to Cairns for Friday night’s runaway 111-82 victory that completed a three-game season sweep of the Taipans, snapped a two-game losing skid and improved the struggling Kiwi outfit to 5-9 for the season. They likely need to go at least 9-5 over the back half of the campaign to sneak into a play-in spot.
Cheatham, who has been out with a foot fracture since the October 26 home defeat to the Adelaide 36ers, did not take the court in Cairns, but warmed up and appeared to be moving freely. He averaged 18.8 points and 5.5 rebounds while shooting 55% from the floor and 60 from deep over four games before his untimely injury.
His team did not need him in North Queensland as they torched the Snakes with a blistering shooting display. But Friday’s final pre-Christmas clash against back-to-back champs the Sydney Kings at Spark is another matter, and the Breakers are likely to require every bit of help they can get to back up on just their second road victory of the season.
Cheatham’s likely presence in Auckland would be a massive boost for a side that needs its good news stories after the longterm defections of both the American forward Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Aussie playmaker Will McDowell-White.
“There’s a process of getting back from a long injury,” said Maor after the Cairns victory. “It’s really important for me that he is around the team. We missed Z in a lot of ways – basketball, but also his leadership. Him being around the team is huge and it’s a big part of him getting incorporated and hitting the ground running.
“If you watched the warmup you can see he’s getting back to his old self physically. [He’s] getting closer.”
There was a lot to like about the Breakers’ effort in Cairns as they found a nice offensive rhythm, pouring in 36 first-quarter points on 13-of-17 shooting to burst out of the blocks. They shot 58% from the floor, 44 from beyond the arc and addressed some serious rebounding deficiencies.
Maor’s decision to replace Tom Abercrombie in the starting lineup with Rubštavičius was inspired, with the 21-year-old sharpshooter responding with a poised display, making five of eight shots, all nine free-throws and going plus-21 in his 28 minutes on court.
“We were due a good game,” Maor said. “We’ve felt we've been doing the right work, and good work, for a while now but it hasn’t shown in the win column. We executed at a high level everything we planned to, the ball was moving on offence, we were able to get into multiple actions without forcing the issue, and we stayed competitive on defence.
“For big stretches we haven’t been playing the way we need to play ... [but] if you were in our practices over the last three weeks, or in our locker-room before this game, you would have no idea what our record was. The guys are doing the work every day, grinding it out, trying to get better, and it was due for it to click.”
Maor was especially rapt over the contribution he got from his Next Star Rubštavičius, who appears to be making a timely move as an NBA Draft prospect. “This kid ... eight rebounds, nine free-throws, aggressive versus the press. It’s not what you see from kids usually. He played big.”
And in terms of Friday’s visit from the 8-6 Kings, who pipped their Kiwi rivals 87-85 in Sydney in early November, Maor didn’t think “complacency is something we are going to need to fight”.