Basketball: Breakers load up to tackle Tigers

By PETER JESSUP

It's not often teams get a chance to reverse a bad result within a week, but that's the case for the Breakers who returned form Melbourne yesterday to face the Tigers at home on Wednesday.

There were no injuries after the one-from-two road trip, and further gains were made in confidence-building after a three-point loss, 78-75, to the Melbourne Tigers on Friday then a smashing 113-81 victory over the Victoria Giants on Saturday night.

Both teams had beaten the Breakers earlier in the season, the Tigers winning 108-97 at the North Shore Events Centre in round three.

But this is a different Breakers outfit. Back then, there was no Pero Cameron or Ben Melmeth (both injured) and no Mike Chappell.

The American import was again the Breakers' leading light in both away games, playing most time and top-scoring.

He might have forced Friday's encounter to overtime if a late three-point attempt had gone down.

And on Saturday he produced threes and slam-dunks as the Breakers looked their best this season.

It was the first time the team have won by more than three points and they enjoyed it, showing a smoothing-out of combinations that allowed slick points-gathering from Phill Jones on the inside, with Dillon Boucher and Paul Henare also pushing, and took heat away from centre Ben Melmeth, who was then able to contribute more.

They were contrasting games: the Tigers match was a defensive slog, but the Giants contest turned into a free-runner.

The Tigers are known as a team who score highly, regularly constructing 110-plus wins. So to keep them to 78, and a 38 per cent shooting average, was hard work well done.

The Breakers gifted too many turnovers in that game, 23 to 10 given back, and made three steals to the Tigers' seven.

On Saturday night the Breakers cut turnovers to a competitive 18-15 and won the steals 10-6.

On both nights they rebounded well, winning the boards 47-33 against the Tigers and 53-30 over the Giants. Melmeth was dominant in both games.

"In a lot of ways what we learned on Friday night made the difference on Saturday," coach Frank Arsego said.

"We had made a conscious effort to improve our defence during the week. It worked well against the Tigers and that helped."

They are learning to apply pressure.

On Saturday they led throughout and by halftime Giants coach Mark Wright was clearly lost, telling his side on-camera that he did not know how to motivate them more.

The Breakers' average was only 85, Wright told his Giants, then berated some players for having a too-casual approach. But it had no effect.

The Breakers are attracting some fans across the Tasman. Expats were loud in the crowds of 1423 on Friday, and a group from the 2387 on Saturday performed an impromptu haka on the court.

The Breakers had a pool rehabilitation session yesterday and will have an easy training run today before tougher preparation tomorrow for the third of this season's encounters with the Tigers.

The match will be Melmeth's 200th in the Australian NBL and Chappell's first for the Breakers on home court.

There will also be the added attraction of seeing Lindsay Gaze, last week voted the NBL's most valued player of the first 25 years.