Basketball: Serious work if Breakers to turn the tables

Corey Webster was injured in Perth and may struggle to make Wednesday's rematch with the Wildcats. Photo / Daniel Wilkins

The good news for the Breakers is they know exactly in which areas amendments must be made.

But the bad news is they have only three days to fix those faults if they wish to remain at the front end of the Australian NBL standings.

While completing the long trip back from Perth following Friday night's defeat, coach Dean Vickerman would have been contemplating a quartet of problems ahead of Wednesday's rematch with the Wildcats.

None, by itself, is enough to derail the defending champions' campaign. But each has added up to a 7-5 season that leaves the Breakers with some ground to make up on front-runners Melbourne (10-3) and Perth (9-4).

The size of that hole will only grow if Vickerman's men are unable to turn the tables from their 86-80 defeat in Western Australia, a loss that elucidated what ails the third-placed club.

The first thing the Breakers must do is essentially out of their control.

Corey Webster once again led all scorers with 23 points against Perth, making some big shots as part of an ultimately futile fourth-quarter revival. But Webster also ended the game in pain, having landed on a defender's foot following a jump shot.

The Breakers will be desperate for the league's leading scorer to take the court at the North Shore Events Centre but, at the same time, will be wary of risking any further damage.

"He's feeling a little bit better today," said assistant coach Paul Henare.

"He's limping around but it doesn't sound like it's anything too serious. It's going to be a pretty tough turnaround ... so if we need to rest him or sit him, we just need to make sure everybody is in the best physical shape possible."

Another issue for the Breakers will be similarly difficult to solve.

With their three clashes against Perth this season decided by an average of 5.7 points, neither side can afford to pass up easy points. But that's what the Breakers did on Friday, missing 14 foul shots to essentially determine the outcome.

And those struggles were far from isolated, either - the Kiwi club sit last in the league with an unacceptable 63 per cent success rate from the free throw line.

"It's definitely a concern and something that we've focused on," Henare said.

"We make the guys shoot them every day but, at the end of the day, you've got to take it into the game and be able to knock them down. We're below standard and below our expectation and we expect better. The guys are conscious and aware of it and they're always working hard."

They must also be working equally hard on the other statistic in which they lag being the rest of the pack, with an average of 14.2 turnovers a game providing opponents with far too many additional possessions.

The Breakers played to their average in Perth and, with the Wildcats enjoying 16 points from extra opportunities, the ball must be treasured on Wednesday night.

And finally, if Webster's health and the core roles of free-throw shooting and protecting possession are tricky to ameliorate overnight, there will be one facet they can attempt to fix at training this week.

The Breakers knew their frontcourt would be tested against the Wildcats but were helpless to limit the threat, shipping 56 points in the paint while managing only 26 of their own.

The absence of Tai Wesley hardly helps, nor does the too-slowly-improving fitness of Mika Vukona and Alex Pledger, but the next three days must be spent finding a solution.