KEY POINTS:
Breakers 112 Dragons 98
The Breakers pounded previous leaders South Melbourne Dragons at the North Shore Events Centre last night to go top of the ANBL ladder.
The Dragons were left looking like blokes who had taken a knife to a gun-fight as the Breakers' heavy artillery dominated a match that turned into a classic three-point shootout.
After a quiet first half it was the sharp-shooting Kirk Penney that proved the difference.
The league's leading scorer and early MVP favourite scored just two of the Breakers' first 41 points. But the local boy exploded towards the end of the first half and in the third quarter with a barrage of six three pointers that mortally wounded the Dragons.
In a game of wild swings, the Breakers watched three double-digit leads evaporate.
The Brian Goorjian-coached Dragons shot horribly in the first half, landing just 30 per cent of their field goal attempts and just four of 18 three point attempts.
But the visitors turned the heat up in the second spell with a five long bombs erasing another handy Breakers lead.
With key centre Rick Rickert forced to sit due to foul trouble the Breakers looked vulnerable. But, as he so often does, Penney took control, lighting up the Dragons from long range to settle the contest by three-quarter time.
Penney's hot hand helped the Breakers to a 36-point third quarter - no mean feat against a Dragons side that had held opponents to just 87 points per game and had strung together eight consecutive wins.
If the Breakers hadn't got the league's attention on their unbeaten three-game road trip last week, they certainly will have now.
This wasn't just a victory, it was a thrashing. Only some wasteful Breakers play and a late Dragons rally in the closing minutes prevented a 20-point plus blowout.
Penney ended with a game-high 27 points, while CJ Bruton chipped in with 20 and Tony Ronaldson 19.
The Breakers edged away late in the first quarter, with Oscar Forman landing a three-pointer to give them a nine-point lead with 40 seconds remaining.
The Dragons found themselves in early foul trouble, giving up five personals in the opening three minutes to put the Breakers in the bonus.
The Breakers didn't make the visitors pay, though, landing just eight of 13 attempts from the charity stripe.
But with Bruton and Forman finding their range from distance, they were well worth their 29-21 quarter-time lead.
Bruton rattled in five-straight points to extend the lead to 13 shortly into the second spell but the Dragons pulled it back with a 20-7 run before Penney restore the double-digit lead with a brace of threes just before the interval.
A fast start to the third quarter saw the Breakers again pull away to a 14-point lead but the Dragons aren't the league's pace-setters for nothing.
Having shot awfully in the first half, the visitors finally found their stroke, connecting with four of their next five to cut the deficit to just three.
But then Penney really exploded and the Dragons finally ran out of answers.
