Basketball: Breakers ready for finals challenge

The Breakers and Taipans will face off in the NBL finals series. Photo / Getty

The Breakers know history will be against them when they hit the road for game one of the grand final series on Friday, but they see the next week as a new and enticing challenge.

Minor premiers Cairns hold home advantage for the three-game series, set to begin in North Queensland on Friday night, and the record books suggest the Taipans should be heavy favourites to claim the Australian NBL crown.

No fewer than 30 of the last 31 best-of-three series have been won by the team with the home advantage, with the Breakers previously the beneficiaries of those odds.

All three of their championship campaigns came after topping the standings at the end of the regular season, meaning in six semifinal and grand final series they were able to enjoy the luxury of hosting two games in Auckland.

In fact, the Breakers have played a best-of-three series without home advantage only once in their history, losing to the Melbourne Tigers at the penultimate stage of the 2008-2009 season.

But Breakers coach Dean Vickerman says, based on his past experiences, the way to break that trend is straightforward.

"You've got to win away. That's as simple as it is," he said. "In 2006 I was with the Tigers, we didn't have home court advantage and we swept the Sydney Kings."

And the Breakers do have some experience of winning series on the road. Their most recent title, in the 2012/13 season, arrived after winning against the Wildcats at home and closing out a 2-0 series sweep in Perth.

"It was massive beating Perth over there, in that one, just to win one of those series on the road," Vickerman said.

The Breakers are certainly more battle-hardened at this time of the year than this week's opponents. Cairns' last trip to the grand finals came in the 2010/12 season when the Breakers won their maiden title, a series that saw the Taipans draw level with a game two double-overtime win before the Breakers finished the job at home in the third and deciding encounter.

"It feels a little bit like that first time when we played Cairns and what an amazing game that was up there in double overtime.

"We expect it to be a close game (against Cairns) and we've just got to make sure we can execute down the stretch."

After dispatching semifinal opponents Adelaide aside with consecutive victories last week, Vickerman expects the all-round talents of the Taipans to make them a more formidable opponent.

"It's going to be different to Adelaide. We thought we just had to take away their running game, [but] this is a team that can do both.

"They can run and they execute really well in the half-court. We have to be perfect in our scout in this game."

Breakers forward Tom Abercrombie reiterated his coach's thoughts while exuding confidence that his side could do the job on the road on Friday.

"It's a different challenge for us," Abercrombie said. "It's a position we haven't found ourselves in before but we've been a very good road team all this year and we just have to back ourselves to go over there and get the job done.

"We've done a good job and we've responded to challenges all year and this is the biggest one of the lot for us.

"To go up there and try and knock off a game in their home court in a finals game, we're really going to have to come together as a group to get the job done.

"Their fans get right into the game and it's a great environment up there to go and play basketball so hopefully we can quiet them down a little bit."