Basketball: Breakers positive after the Blitz

The Breakers returned from their last pre-season foray to Australia confident their offence will come right and conceding work is needed on their defence.

They scored 115 points against the title favourites Brisbane Bullets and 124 against the Townsville Crocodiles, losing by 10 to the Bullets and 17 in Townsville.

Coach Andrej Lemanis said they were not happy losing, but given the seriously interrupted preparation the team have suffered, there were positive signs they were on the right track.

"We still have lots of room for improvement and it is in the areas you'd expect, understanding the team defensive and offensive rules," Lemanis said. "We managed to score all right and the offence looks as though it's going to flow. We need to work on team defence, understanding the team concepts."

The shortened Blitz games in Cairns were useful, but by Saturday afternoon the team were physically spent after two full games in two days, the travel, then the 24-minute games, Lemanis said. They finished out of a playoff place after beating the Victorian state team Big V 61-49 and losing to Brisbane 54-49 and Perth 58-45.

There are no injury concerns ahead of Sunday's opening game against the Cairns Taipans at Trusts Stadium.

Paul Henare is over the thigh bruise that kept him out of the Tall Blacks games and new import Brant Bailey is due back from the United States on Thursday.

"I'm a little more optimistic than I have been for a while," Lemanis said of their chances after seeing what is close to his starting team in action for the first time. "We've got a good group, they're getting on well and they're enthusiastic and I get the feeling they want to achieve something as a group."

The Melbourne Tigers won the Blitz with a 66-38 victory over Brisbane.