Revenge was on the minds of both the Breakers before the game after the Tigers stole a tight affair at The Cage in week three, so it only seemed fair the Breakers get away with one here.
The talk pre-game was surrounding the Tigers' weakness when it came to defending inside, and how the Breakers' big men would thrive in the paint. But the home side often tried to force it in the interior when there was no feasible play, with Mika Vukona guilty on a couple of occasions early on.
The Tigers initially seemed bereft of ideas when league-leading scorer Cam 'Trigger' Tragardh was spelled, but former Cairns trio Ayinde Ubaka, Ron Dorsey and Daniel Dillon began to find their range late in the half.
That coincided with the Tigers being the first team to pull away just before the halfway mark, going on a 7-0 run thanks in large to a Gary Wilkinson brain explosion.
The big American was called for a foul on Cam Tragardh, and reacted by appearing to feign blowing a whistle in the referee's face. This saw a technical foul being dished out to a fired-up Wilkinson, before Ubaka shot the two free throws for the T and Tragardh layed in the ensuing possession to give the visitors a nine-point lead.
The teams headed down the tunnel with the Tigers leading 47-41 in a half which featured 12 lead changes - a sign of things to come.
The Breakers made light work of that deficit in the opening stages of the third quarter and, from there, the quarter closely resembled the first as the sides swapped baskets and leads, with the Tigers taking a 71-70 lead into the final break.
The fourth continued in the same vein, with the teams continuing to one-up each other and, in the final minute, Tragardh put the Tigers ahead, before Wilkinson tied up the game with a clutch lay-in from a Jackson dish. Dillon had a chance to win it as time expired but his short-range jumper fell short and sent the teams into overtime.
Neither side were able to separate themselves in the first overtime, with some nervy possessions being matched by staunch defence. The Tigers recovered a missed free throw and had a chance to send the crowd home, but Tragardh's last-second shot rimmed out.
The Breakers made double overtime their own early, with another Abercrombie three putting the lead at six and bringing the biggest cheer of the night, and Gary Wilkinson sealed the game with a lay-up with 1.20 left.
Breakers 108 (Abercrombie 33, Corletto 18, Wilkinson 16)
Melbourne 98 (Dorsey 21, Tragardh 20, Ubaka 15)
