In basketball parlance, the free-throw line is often called the charity stripe - but the New Zealand Breakers aren't accepting many donations.

Two of the Breakers' favourite sons have been given the keys to the kingdom.

Former player Paul Henare has been named as the New Zealand Breakers head coach for the 2016-17 season, replacing current coach Dean Vickerman.

The Breakers fell further into their slump with an agonising double-overtime loss against the Hawks today.

For the third time this season Kirk Penney and the Hawks have dealt the Breakers a heavy defeat.

Throughout the Breakers' championship run in the Australian NBL, merely making the playoffs has always been an after-though

The Breakers tonight lost their third game in their last four fixtures, held in check by the Adelaide 36ers at the NSEC.

No one within the Breakers was shocked by Corey Webster's latest scoring spree in Sunday's win over Sydney.

When Cedric Jackson hit a half-court buzzer beater to end a double-overtime classic against Perth, few would have expected that moment to be eclipsed mere weeks later.

Kirk Penney led the Illawarra Hawks to a huge victory over the Breakers at Vector Arena this afternoon

For all the understandable attention around Kirk Penney's presence, a quick glance at the competition scoring charts reveals the exact magnitude of the threat Illawarra will pose today against the Breakers.

The New Zealand Breakers have helped slam dunk the Christmas blues for Kiwi families in need.

There's typically little notable about the period late in lopsided basketball games known as "garbage time".

Performances like tonight's perfectly illustrate just why the Breakers are currently riding a 10-game winning streak at home.

If the Breakers wanted to experience pressure basketball to get themselves ready for another title tilt, they did a good job against the Crocodiles.

Crowd behaviour has again become an issue.

The Perth Wildcats will "move on" from an incident of alleged racial abuse during last night's loss to the Breakers

The Breakers' victory over Perth was marred by allegations that Nate Jawai was racially abused by a fan.

Key contributions from Tom Abercrombie and Charles Jackson help Breakers clinch the season series over the Wildcats.