Basketball: Changing of the guard brings reward for Breakers

Kevin Braswell. Photo / Getty Images

Thursday will be D-Day for the Breakers and B-Day for "Bear" - Tony Ronaldson - in his likely last game at the North Shore Events Centre.

Ronaldson is bringing an illustrious career to a close this year and he has never missed the ANBL playoffs before. The Breakers will be trying to keep that streak hot when they take on the Gold Coast Blaze on Thursday.

However, it is anything but a simple situation and coach Andrej Lemanis has been involved in the league long enough as a player and head coach to expect the unexpected this week.

After next weekend's final round, four of the eight teams in the league step into play-off mode.

The Breakers currently sit in fifth position on the league ladder with a split of 13 wins and losses from 26 games and have two games this week - against the Blaze on Thursday and at the Cairns Taipans on Saturday.

Sitting just above the Breakers in fourth position are the Wollongong Hawks (also with 13 wins), who played overnight against the Gold Coast, completing their 26th game for the season.

If Wollongong defeat Gold Coast - they are one win above the Breakers - they would be better placed. A loss would set up a classic dogfight between the two equally placed teams over their final two games.

Lemanis only cares about one team - his own: "As I've said from the outset of the season, collectively we control our own destiny and our play-off chances are in our own hands over the week," he said.

"If we beat Gold Coast, and then get Cairns in Cairns on Saturday night, then the other results will fall as they will and we will either be in the playoffs or not."

The Breakers unleashed a ruthless display of pressure defence and something every basketball coach enjoys - repeated hustle plays - showing no mercy in overpowering Wollongong 88-60 at the North Shore Events Centre on Thursday night.

It was typical Breakers' basketball. Precise execution of a half-court offence coupled with something this Auckland-based franchise is starting to show at the right end of the season - a hard-nosed edge to their defence.

Wollongong have been a physical bully, winning all three previous encounters this season with the Breakers. However, it was the Breakers dishing out the physical lesson this time.

"When you review the stats sheet after the Wollongong game, our shooting stats were good but nothing to predict we'd win by that margin.

"We won it clearly in the effort areas of the game such as rebounding, steals and hustle and we played with energy throughout the game," said Lemanis.

The Breakers carried some injury concerns into the Wollongong game with star forward Rick Rickert sitting out the game with an ankle injury.

Second-season superstar Tom Abercrombie also logged extended minutes after returning from injury as did his Tall Black team-mate Alex Pledger.

Lemanis is looking no further ahead than next Thursday night's clash with a Gold Coast team carrying their own injury problems. Star Gold Coast point guard Ayinde Ubaka has a corked right thigh and will most likely not play.

"I have being in this league long enough to know that something totally unexpected will happen over the next week and it'll either impact or assist us," Lemanis said.

"Rick's ankle injury was serious and we did have him suited up ready to play if required against Wollongong. He would only have been 60-65 per cent fit to go and if our bigs had gone down with injury we may have had to play him.

"However, other players stepped up in his absence and it's pleasing that we didn't have to risk him. Another week of rehab work on that ankle and hopefully he'll be ready for Thursday's game."

Three weeks ago Lemanis was not hitting the panic button despite the fact the Breakers had lost four matches in a row.

The introduction of new American point guard Kevin Braswell was seen as the last roll of the dice for Lemanis and his coaching staff - but has proved a stunning success.

Braswell was the ideal type of experienced player to bring into a team struggling to close out games. With Braswell playing, the Breakers have won four of their last five games.

"I am really proud of the way the team reacted to the four-match losing streak. No one was negative towards each other and there was no finger pointing. The guys continued to roll into training and kept working hard trying to overcome everything.

"Kevin was the type of person we wanted to bring into our environment. He has come in and immediately accepted his role and has picked things up very quickly for such a difficult position - the point."