Coach Paul Henare shrugs off Breakers turnover trend

NZ Breakers coach Paul Henare addresses the team during timeout. Photo/AP Photos

After a near-calamitous four-quarter meltdown last week, NZ Breakers coach Paul Henare has avoided a paralysis-by-analysis approach to his team's recent turnover woes.

On the back of four straight wins, the four-time Australian NBL champions are now back into the playoff race, but need to continue their late-season rally against Cairns Taipans at home on Thursday.

While the Breakers have steadied the ship in terms of wins and losses, their latest 86-82 victory over Perth Wildcats again exposed their propensity for handing possession back to their opponents.

They conceded 24 turnovers over 40 minutes, but eight of them came in the final quarter and most of those in the dying moments, when Perth coach Trevor Gleeson applied a full-court press that saw the Breakers struggle to get the ball over halfway.

Leading by 11 points with less than three minutes to play, the Breakers watched their advantage evaporate to just two with 14 seconds left.

Henare, like Breakers fans everywhere, probably saw his team's playoff hopes flash before his eyes, but was downplaying the collapse this week.

"We addressed it this morning and I didn't want to make a big issue of it," he says. "We looked at one of the edits, where Perth had five guys in the backcourt and a triple team on [American guard] Kevin Dillard.

"That's not normal basketball. They were desperate and it's something I don't think we'll see too much.

"It's important to address where we could have been - we could have been in better places and started in better spots - but we're definitely not going to get tied up in thinking we've got some big issue here.

"It was just one of those game situations where they threw the kitchen sink at us and got some success out of it."

Henare also believes his players may also have become tentative under pressure and more focused on protecting their lead.

"If we had stayed aggressive and passed the ball up the floor, we probably would have got a dunk out of it," he muses.

And Henare doesn't anticipate other teams will also try to exploit any perceived weakness.

"Teams can only be who they are. I don't expect Cairns to come out and do what Perth did - they don't really do that, but also you've got to have the personnel."

Earlier this season, the Breakers grappled with the league's worst free-throw shooting statistics, something that still haunts them from time to time.

Henare is obviously not keen to become obsessed with one aspect of a game plan that seems to be working for now.

"I don't think we can blame [turnovers] for our losses," he says. "We have a number of key indicators that we know have an impact on the game.

"Right now, we have four key indicators and we've found, if we have a high turnover count, but achieve the other three, we're in a pretty good place."