"You've got to prepare for the battle, prepare for the fight with Perth, and I think the boys have shown they're ready to be up for the intensity of this game," Vickerman said. "You never want to be surprised by the pressure that they're putting on you, and I thought we did a good job of simulating that through the week."
A big part of that pressure arrives at the offensive glass, a category in which players from the Breakers (Mika Vukona, Ekene Ibekwe) and Perth (Matthew Knight, Deandre Daniels) occupy four of the top six spots in the competition.
Allowing offensive rebounds saw the Breakers struggle in last weekend's loss to Sydney but Vickerman backed his players to repeat their performance from round one, when Perth were restricted to just seven boards at that end of the floor.
"If we rebounded like we did last week, we'd be in some trouble," he said. "They're a team that crashes the offensive boards and they have a lot of people who do that well.
"But our activity levels last time we played them were off the charts and that's the thing that we've been showing going into this one - the desperation and having each other's backs. If we can do that we'll be in a good place."
The Breakers are well-placed health-wise, with Tom Abercrombie fully fit and Alex Pledger meeting expectations. The centre will be set for about 10 minutes a game for the foreseeable future, an undesirable prospect but one that at least allows him to again experience the mutual antagonism can mark meetings between these sides.
"Last year I guess the rivalry probably wasn't spoken about as much as it was in previous years," Pledger said. "But we got a pretty handy win over them the night their (championship) banner was raised, so there's definitely still a bit of rivalry."
