KEY POINTS:
The Breakers will be out to shake off their Cairns Taipans hoodoo when they face their nemesis club in Cairns tonight.
Two of the Breakers' three defeats this season have been inflicted by the Taipans - a 122-111 drubbing in Auckland and a 101-92 overtime defeat in Cairns just 21 days ago.
As well as struggling to compete physically with the taller Taipans, the Breakers have been hammered in the foul counts and shot to death from the free-throw line.
In Auckland the Taipans went to the line a remarkable 50 times and, while things were a little better in the rematch, the Taipans still enjoyed a 34-6 shot advantage from the charity stripe.
Levelling up the foul count and competing better on the boards would be the key for the second-placed Breakers as they look to follow upSaturday's unexpected victory over the title-favourite Tigers in Melbourne, coach Andrej Lemanis said.
"Hopefully we'll be able to do something about [the foul count]," Lemanis said. "The two times we have played them we have struggled. They have dominated us on the boards. They have just overpowered us so we need to be a bit smarter than that.
"But it is not like they have come out and smashed us. The game at our place we had chances to win and here we went to over-time and we had a shot in regulation to win it. We still play them two more times so we'll see - if they beat us all four times then they might be our bogey team."
The Breakers had been lethargic and off their game in both previous encounters, Lemanis said.
"Hopefully this time we'll come with everyone a little fired up and we'll have the energy to get the job done."
At 8-3 and with a 3-1 record on the road, another victory either tonight or against the struggling Crocodiles on Saturday would set up the New Zealand club nicely heading in to the second half of the season, Lemanis said.
They go into tonight's match with some serious momentum following Saturday's night's two-point victory over the Tigers. That victory, which the Breakers closed out despite having a 22-point lead erased in the final quarter, was the club's first against the Tigers on Australian pine.
It came just 48-hours after they had slumped at home to Adelaide following the injury-enforced withdrawal of CJ Bruton. The star point guard recovered from the back spasms that forced him out of the 36ers match, notching 12 points and five assists to underline his value to the side.
Kirk Penney continues to lead the league in scoring despite his ankle injury. He notched 25 points in the 86-84 victory over the Tigers.
The Breakers might struggle against the Taipans but they seem to have the wood over the Tigers in a match-up that could well be repeated in the play-offs, or even the Grand Final series.
"It was certainly a good way to bounce back but that game is over for us," Lemanis said. "Now we need to turn our focus to the Taipans."
