Breakers reflect on a positive Blitz weekend

The SKYCITY Breakers rounded off a satisfactory four days in Australia at the NBL Blitz, winning their third and final game 84-72 against Adelaide today, and head home tomorrow, content that they have made good progress early in their pre-season.

The victory over Adelaide was their second in three games, following on from a win over Cairns and a defeat to Perth, but Breakers Assistant Coach Judd Flavell was quick to highlight other areas of progress as being more important than wins so early in their preparation for the upcoming season.

"Introducing the new players and finding a feel for who we are with those new players and molding them into the group were the key things from games this early in our preparation. This has been a step in the right direction for sure, we feel with the little time we have had together that we are on the right track.

"It is always good to play games after a week of beating up on each other in training. But now will be good to get back to practice and make more adjustments on where we got exposed and keep working on our systems. It is good to see those systems against different opposition with different strategies though, so it was good to see that unfold and hold up for the most part."

In the win over Adelaide, Tom Abercrombie once again led the way, continuing an impressive few days from the swingman, with 15 points, 3 rebounds and 3 assists in just 17 minutes of court time. He was well supported by DJ Newbill, who stuffed the stat sheet with 14 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 steals. Shea Ili contributed 12 points, 2 assists and 3 steals in an all court effort, Mika Vukona had 12 points on 6 of 8 shooting, along with 6 rebounds and 3 assists, Derone Raukawa had 10 points off the bench, Jordan Ngatai 6 boards and 2 assists and Alex Pledger had 6 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists.

Flavell says it was an improved showing from the Breakers after yesterdays disappointing effort against Perth.

"Today was much better overall, the energy we had as a group was much better and improved. That was evident with just how many points we created in transition and our overall attention to detail. Adelaide are a team who flies at you at full speed, but our defensive strategies and systems to combat fast breaking teams was good today."

The Breakers led by 15 at the break on the back of a lock down second quarter that allowed Adelaide just 10 points. So early in the pre-season, it is the defensive effort that pleased Flavell the most, in this game against Adelaide, but also earlier in the tournament.

"Going by the stat sheet, they had two points in the final five minutes of that second quarter. Our first two games we got into foul trouble and teams were in the bonus early and we were playing on the back foot. Today was great, in that second quarter we stayed disciplined, were able to slide our feet and show our hands and force them into tough shots. We kept them off the free throw line and they struggled to score.

"With two new imports and a couple of other new players, it is the same every year as they work out the way the games are played and refereed in the NBL, and the officials made a point this weekend as to how they want the games to be called and we will continue to make adjustments to work in with that approach."

The team now returns home to continue their pre-season training, with games on the horizon in Napier (September 17) and New Plymouth (September 19) against Melbourne, before hosting Brisbane in Tauranga on September 27 in their final hit out before the season opener against Cairns at Spark Arena on October 8.

SKYCITY NZ Breakers 84

Abercrombie 15, Newbill 14, Vukona 12, Ili 12, Raukawa 10

Adelaide 36ers 72

Johnson 18, Creek 11, Drmic 10

BOX SCORE and game review CLICK HERE

For details on the pre-season games in Napier, New Plymouth and Tauranga, CLICK HERE

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Basketball New Zealand