Basketball: Breakers fans flock back

By PETER JESSUP

Home fans are flocking back to support the Breakers since they reversed their losing streak with three wins on the road.

A good crowd is expected at the North Shore Events Centre for tonight's clash with the Melbourne Tigers. Ticket sales are well up on earlier games bar their first and that is thought to be thanks to the wins.

Each of the 12 teams in the Australian NBL plays each other team three times in a 33-game season, so this is the Breakers' last chance to beat the Tigers.

It was 108-97 to the Melbourne team first time up at the North Shore Events Centre, but the Breakers were without centre Ben Melmeth and captain Pero Cameron, both out injured, and have since added Mike Chappell.

The Tigers sneaked home 78-75 in Melbourne last Saturday, a result the Breakers are bent on reversing on their home ground.

Coach Frank Arsego has named the same 10 players who made the two winning road trips - Cameron, Melmeth and Chappell, Dillon Boucher, Iona Enosa, Phill Jones, Paul Henare, Aaron Olson, Paora Winitana and Blake Truslove - but indicated he will also use development players Lindsay Tait and Mike Homik.

The time those two get will come down to how comfortable the Breakers are in the run home.

Tait continues to show in practice that he is not out of place in the side, despite not playing in the NBL since the loss to Brisbane in Hamilton.

Homik has stiff competition for a run-on and is unlikely to get many minutes unless the Breakers are well up.

There are a few milestones in the match-up, not least that it is Tigers coach Lindsay Gaze's 600th game in the competition. He is the first coach to reach that number after starting with the Tigers in 1984 and taking them through all the seasons since with a 312-287 win-loss record.

The only coach with more wins is the Sydney Kings' Brian Goorjian with 363.

It is Melmeth's 200th game as a player and Chappell's first on his new home court.

The Tigers will be without centre Mark Bradtke, who has a hamstring strain.

Coach Frank Arsego, whose record since Jeff Green's sudden departure is three wins and four losses, said the playoffs were not something that had entered his players' thinking, yet.

They knew the fate of their season, which reaches the halfway point tonight, was still in their own hands.

But December was "the month we have to get some things done." The Breakers have eight games this month, "and most of those games need to be in our pocket for us to make some inroads into the table."

The tip-off is 7.30pm.