KEY POINTS:
The New Zealand Breakers are pleased with their draw for the next Australian National Basketball League season starting in September.
The calendar for 2007/2008 has the Breakers playing all their home games on Thursday nights at the North Shore Events Centre, starting with a home match against the Cairns Taipans on September 20.
The team then have a two-week break to allow more training time with any Tall Blacks returning from Olympic qualifying games.
The club's first four matches will be on their home court.
With the Gold Coast Blaze entering the league and boosting the number of teams to 13, the Breakers will play 30 matches, three fewer than last season, of which 15 are at home and 15 are away.
They play six teams in an "eastern" conference three times each -- the two Melbourne teams (Tigers and Dragons), West Sydney, Wollongong, Sydney and Cairns -- and meet all other sides twice.
Unlike previous seasons, the Breakers don't have to contend with massive road trips lumping several games together.
Only three of their 12 road trips will involve playing more than one match, with double headers in Melbourne and Sydney, plus a Sydney match en route to Perth in the final round before the play-offs.
Breakers general manager Richard Clarke said the draw was less imposing than previous seasons.
"We're pleased on a number of fronts -- the consistency of Thursday night games at home, the minimising of travel at the start of the season to ensure time to integrate our Tall Blacks back into the team and, overall, the way our arduous travel schedule has been addressed," Clarke said.
"We're also working with our airline partner and health professionals to try and overcome the ill-effects of travel so that we can dramatically improve our success rate on the road."
- NZPA
