BREAKERS BOUNCED
NZ Breakers coach Paul Henare would like to make a public apology to the people of Taranaki for his side’s performance against Melbourne United on Tuesday night.
New Plymouth’s TSB Stadium hosted an Australian National Basketball League pre-season game between the two sides, with Melbourne cruising to a 101-62 win.
While he said earlier in the week that the result wasn’t their top priority, after the match Henare said the way the team played was a huge concern.
‘‘That was unacceptable, and hopefully this team never puts anything close to that on the floor again,’’ he said.
The Breakers came into the game after beating Melbourne in Napier on Sunday, but were no match for the league favourites this time around.
‘‘Melbourne played well tonight, they came out and made some change defensively and they
got after it. But in terms of us turning up, not one of us did and that’s a real shame considering the good support we’ve had here.’’
Led by import guard Casper Ware and big man Josh Boone, the visitors were a step ahead of the Breakers for much of the game to take a convincing, and rare, victory on New Zealand soil.
Boone opened the scoring going 1-2 from the charity stripe after Vukona’s first foul, however a hot start from Breakers import guards Edgar Sosa and DJ Newbill putting the home side ahead.
It didn’t last long though, as Melbourne were able to claim a number of second chance points on largely uncontested offensive rebounds - much to Henare’s dismay. From there, it was one-way traffic as the Breakers slumped to a 39-point thrashing.
‘‘We got schooled, and hopefully these guys remember that.’’
The Kiwi side were only able to convert on 29 per cent of their shots, had twice as many turnovers as Melbourne, with the visitors also posting 20 more assists than their hosts.
Henare said there was not a single positive to take out of Tuesday’s game, aside from being able to take the team to a different part of the country.
‘‘Maybe the one good thing is that we got our a*** kicked and it is the pre-season. We’ve got an opportunity to turn a few things around, but they’ll be hurting.’’
The Breakers will now look to sort themselves out before their final pre-season game, in Tauranga against the Brisbane Bullets on September 27. Their first game of the ANBL season is against the Cairns Taipans in Auckland on October 8.