Basketball: Make-or-break time of season

By PETER JESSUP

The Breakers have to start winning if they are to remain in the hunt for a playoff spot in the Australian basketball league, and winning at home today would be a big start.

The club's first-choice line-up will take the court for the first time and the return of centre Ben Melmeth, who has missed six games, will provide solidity under pressure as well as varying the options on attack.

Teams have focused their defence on shooter Phill Jones, a measure of the regard in which he is held, and when Jones has been unable to score wide and without an inside presence, the side have suffered.

Against West Sydney at the North Shore Events Centre today, a half-fit Melmeth may be the difference.

Assistant coach Frank Arsego, with plenty of experience of the Australian NBL, gives hope for improvement.

Best of all, he is not showing any response to the pressure of losing, other than continuing the development programme. He said he would be worried if he thought the Breakers were as good as they could be.

Arsego cited the Tall Black tour that disrupted their build-up, the short break between the end of the domestic season and the start of the NBL, the team's lack of knowledge in the league, as well as the predicted grind of travel and backing up as reasons for only two wins from nine.

The New Zealand players had not been subjected to intense coaching before, simply because they had not been fulltime professionals before, Arsego noted.

They were still adjusting to the physical nature of the competition and maturing mentally to learn to play out the game rather than play in patches.

Captain Pero Cameron had no doubt that Melmeth's presence would give them better looks at the basket. "He will keep their defence honest and he'll improve our defence as well."

And Dillon Boucher said the team would get a lift just from having Melmeth on court.

There was no trouble with morale. The players could sense an improvement and the gap with the Australian sides was closing.

Centre Iona Enosa can play the Razorbacks, despite being cited by the NBL yesterday with using a head-butt against Brisbane Bullets guard Ben Castle in the fourth quarter of the loss at Christchurch. .

From here to Christmas the Breakers have another six games. They are home to the Bullets next Wednesday then the Wollongong Hawks on Friday, followed by away matches to the Razorbacks and Melbourne Tigers.

The Tigers play here on December 17 in a game that marks the halfway point in the season.

By then, the Breakers will have to have improved their position of ninth on a 12-team ladder, or season one will effectively be dead.