Basketball: Another close win over Kings will do just fine

By DAVID LEGGAT

It was a tight squeeze the last time they met, but there's no mistaking what a win - any win - for the Breakers over the defending champion Sydney Kings will mean for the New Zealand franchise at Waitakere's Trusts Stadium tonight.

In round two, it was 96-94 for the Breakers - their first win in four attempts over the Australian National Basketball League champions - and every bit as tight as that score suggests.

But last weekend's back-to-back wins over the West Sydney Razorbacks restored faith for the Breakers, not to mention lifting them to fifth in the 12-team league with a 3-3 record.

However, those wins were achieved, at least in part, against the emotional backdrop of an impending punishment for an exchange of text messages between Tall Black Dillon Boucher and former coach Jeff Green, with current Breakers boss Frank Arsego the topic of discussion.

If the Breakers were helped by a "let's stick together" element last weekend, that feeling won't be in the air tonight. It will be down to which team plays the smarter, stronger basketball.

Arsego watched the second-placed Kings take apart pacesetters the Adelaide 36ers on Wednesday night. Nothing he saw raised his eyebrows.

"Defensively they are playing with great intensity. They are obviously becoming more cohesive," he said.

"But we've moved on and that's why it becomes a great game for us to play at this time of the year. It becomes a bit of a report card for us."

The Kings will have import Mark Sanford, who missed that round-two clash, lining up. He bagged 17 points against Adelaide and although Arsego is not sure he is a dominant inside presence and is more comfortable facing the basket, "he complements their team well and he'll be a handful".

An important element will be how astutely the Breakers control the key Kings players, notably point guard CJ Bruton and captain Jason Smith.

Then again, the Kings will be wary of Tall Blacks captain Pero Cameron, big centre Ben Pepper - in a fine vein of form - and free-scoring Mike Chappell.

Arsego wants to develop a style in which the Breakers don't become over-reliant on two or three players pushing the buttons each week. Tonight will be a good indication of how much progress has been made in that respect.

In today's other sixth-round games, the Hunter Pirates host the Wollongong Hawks, the Perth Wildcats are at home to the 36ers, the Townsville Crocodiles play the Melbourne Tigers and the Brisbane Bullets host the Cairns Taipans.