KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand Breakers kick-started a three-match road trip with a thrilling 86-84 defeat of Melbourne to climb back to second in the Australian National Basketball League.
In an excellent response following their upset home loss to Adelaide on Thursday, the Breakers withstood a late surge from the defending champions in a clash between sides seemingly bound for the playoffs.
After leading by as much as 22 early in the third quarter, a Sam Mackinnon-inspired Melbourne tightened their defences and restricted the visitors to 26 points in the second half.
ANBL leading scorer Kirk Penney again led the Breakers' scoring with 25, including 21 in the first half, with support from Tony Ronaldson (13) and Oscar Forman (12 and nine rebounds).
Ronaldson put relinquishing such a big lead down to the Breakers deviating from what had worked well in the first half and was pleased crucial shots by himself and Forman at the end were enough to ensure victory.
"We just made some shots in the end," the all-time ANBL games record holder said. "Whenever you're struggling at the offensive end, your defence has to stay solid and even though they were making runs at us for the most part, when it mattered, we got stops and that was the key."
For Melbourne, classy centre Chris Anstey scored 19 and pulled down a game-high 11 rebounds.
The Breakers led 30-28 after a free-flowing first quarter, with Penney sinking 14 of his points, including three three-pointers.
They cleared away to 60-43 after a dominant second quarter and 67-45 soon after, before the Tigers sharpened their defence.
Melbourne stormed into the final break trailing 68-71.
Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis was most pleased with the way his team stood up in the last term: "They're a good team, we always knew they were going to make a run.
"... In that fourth quarter, it turned into playoff intensity, the physicality that was allowed and the way it was played, it was at a different level than we've been playing for the other regular season games, so it was nice to get away with the win."
The Breakers play Cairns on Wednesday and Townsville on Saturday.
- NZPA
