Basketball: Breakers drop thriller

Tom Abercrombie gets a pass away under pressure against Adelaide. Photo / Nick Reed

Breakers 88
Adelaide 93

On tonight's evidence the Breakers and Adelaide may soon play one of the more entertaining playoff series in recent memory.

If that meeting eventuates, though, the Kiwi club have a couple of weeks to figure out how to reverse the result.

Adelaide (15-11) tonight won their eighth straight game in thrilling fashion at Vector Arena, emerging on top of a Breakers side (18-8) who did little wrong.

Unlike last week's disappointing defeat in Townsville, the Breakers shot the ball relatively well and limited both their own turnovers and the opposition's offensive rebounds.

Corey Webster scored 10 point in the fourth and finished with 26 overall, while back-court mate Cedric Jackson recorded a third career triple-double to finish with 11 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds.

The pair helped the Breakers roar back from a double-digit deficit in the final five minutes and Tom Abercrombie even had a couple of chances to to complete the comeback in the dying seconds.

"Two good shots," Abercrombie said. " I probably had a bit more time on that first one but the second one was a good look and it didn't go in."

The first would have been a go-ahead basket, while the second seemed set to send the game into overtime. That outcome would have been only fitting after 40 furious minutes that would never look out of place in the post-season.

"I'm obviously really pleased with the fightback and the defence that we played in the fourth quarter," said coach Dean Vickerman. "But you always look at the last couple of minutes as see some things that we could have done better."

The Breakers' late charge did somewhat obscure the fact that, for three-and-a-half quarters, Adelaide were simply too good. The 36ers currently sit in fourth place on the Australian NBL ladder but, as it stands, no team looks more likely to claim the crown come next month.

Which adds an interesting wrinkle to the final week of the regular season. The Breakers can still sneak ahead of Cairns into top spot and seal home advantage throughout the playoff - and a win over Perth on Sunday will certainly help - but would they want a first-round meeting with Adelaide?

The 36ers' form was illustrated almost immediately tonight, withstanding back-to-back threes from Webster to take a five-point lead to the first break. Despite finding himself in foul trouble, the mercurial guard continued his hot shooting in the second, heading to the half with an impressive but all-to limited stat line of 16 points on eight shots in nine minutes.

Adelaide were ahead by seven at the major break and that margin grew as Jamar Wilson scored 11 of his 28 points in the period, leaving the Breakers nine points down going into the fourth. But that margin was erased as Webster inspired a remarkable resurgence, seeing the Breakers seize the lead with under two minutes on the clock, before several chances to seal an unlikely win went begging.

Breakers 88 (Webster 26, Abercrombie 15, Ibekwe 14)
Adelaide 93 (Wilson 28, Motum 18, Johnson 15)
HT: 47-54