Breakers v Blaze
North Shore Events Centre, tonight 7.30pm
They may have lost their last two matches in disappointing fashion but the Breakers are in far better shape than their opponents on the North Shore tonight.
Propped up by their 5-0 start, the Breakers still sit second on the ladder.
The Gold Coast Blaze enjoy no such luxuries. After beginning the season 2-1 the Blaze have lost three to slump to sixth.
The fallout has seen the club sack two imports and replace them with newcomers Ira Clark and former NZNBL player Daryl Hudson. Clark and Hudson debuted in the Blaze's last match but that didn't help the club avoid a painful home loss to the previously winless Melbourne Tigers.
Led by a season-high 23 points from forward Gary Wilkinson, the Breakers won this season's previous meeting 96-81 on the Gold Coast.
But that was a Breakers team riding high on a win streak that eventually stretched to 11 games.
Since then the Breakers have copped a 40-point thumping in Perth and turned in the worst offensive effort in the club's history in last Friday's home loss to the pace-setting Hawks.
But tonight forward BJ Anthony returns from injury and will boost a line that looks offensively thin beyond Wilkinson and Alex Pledger.
Guard Corey Webster, who has recovered from a virus, will also inspire the squad - his points-scoring outbursts were sorely missed against the Hawks.
Friday's record low points haul of 57 coincided with Kirk Penney's return for just his second match this season but coach Andrej Lemanis didn't believe his star shooting guard should carry the blame.
"It's not like everybody was playing great and then Kirk came in and disrupted the flow," Lemanis said.
"As a team we just didn't have a great performance and I don't think Kirk coming in had anything to do with that."
A bigger issue was the team's apparent fatigue from the tough road trip to Adelaide and Perth.
Lemanis felt his players were slow transitioning into offence and were sloppy setting screens.
"We were content to jog so we didn't put enough pressure on their defensive transition," he said.
"Because we didn't generate enough easy baskets by doing those hard things we relied on the jumper and they didn't go in."
A victory over the Blaze is imperative if the Breakers are to prevent this mini-slump developing into the type of major slide that wrecked last season.
But Lemanis would just like to see his players revert to doing the basics properly.
"We just have to come out and play well," he said.
