Breakers 91
The defeat that had been coming the Breakers' way for a while now finally arrived last night, and much of it wasn't pretty.
A dramatic fourth-quarter comeback - when the Breakers overturned a 20-point deficit to draw level in the final minute - did plenty to obscure the shortcomings of the first three quarters. At the death it seemed the Breakers would once again dodge the bullet that has been tracking them, but this time it found its mark.
Gary Wilkinson missed a long jumper that would have tied the game with 4s left, and CJ Bruton couldn't come up with a miracle on the buzzer after Darryl Hudson had missed a free throw to leave the door slightly ajar.
Having been bested in double overtime on the Gold Coast on Sunday, the Blaze rocked into Auckland for the second leg of the double header and ripped the Breakers apart for three one-sided quarters.
The Blaze played like the team desperately clawing for a playoff berth that they are. The Breakers played like a team that knew a reverse now - their first in nine matches - would barely dent their position of supremacy at the top of the NBL ladder.
Their excuse was also readymade. Having travelled to Australia and back, they had to log twice the air miles of their opponents. That and the overtime thriller on Sunday would have taken its toll. They were the more tired side and played like it until the writing all but covered the wall.
The cracks had been there for a while. Melbourne and Perth both pushed the Breakers to the limit before the Blaze twice let winning positions slip in the first encounter.
With a bunch of key performers well below par, the Breakers have been there for the taking. The Blaze finally took them. Better now than in the playoffs in April, certainly, but there is no escaping the fact the Breakers have slipped back to the pack, at least in terms of form.
Kirk Penney started out where he left off in his 35-point effort on Sunday, nailing a three on the first possession. But it didn't take long for him and his team-mates to cool off, with the Blaze taking a grip on the match mid-way through the opening quarter.
If the Breakers started Sunday's game like a house on fire (77 per cent shooting from the field and 67 first-half points), the flames had well and truly subsided last night.
By quarter-time the visitors had eked out a 29-24 lead. By half-time the margin had doubled, with Ira Clarke and Chris Goulding doing most of the damage.
The Breakers showed signs of life at the offensive end, mostly through Wilkinson, but too many players floundered. Alex Pledger's usually safe hands deserted him, resulting in two turnovers and three missed point-blank shots, while point guard Kevin Braswell's radar was so awry that one wild pass cleaned out a table of corporate spectators' drinks.
Down 20 in the final quarter, the Breakers required a significant comeback just to avoid the type of home-court humiliation that used to be commonplace on the North Shore. They certainly managed that. In the end, they will probably count themselves unlucky not to have won it.
