Breakers Defence Holds Firm for Win in Cairns

Monday, October 24, 2022

The New Zealand Breakers shook off missing their first 15 field goals to lock down the Cairns Taipans on Sunday afternoon and bounce back from Thursday's loss to come away with the 68-64 victory.

It was a horror start at Cairns Convention Centre for the Breakers after a 22-point home loss to South East Melbourne on Thursday.

They went scoreless for more than the first seven minutes, missing the first 15 shots and equalling the lowest ever first quarter score in NBL history with five points without a field goal for more than eight minutes.

But what New Zealand did well was play strong defence to limit the damage with only DJ Hogg causing damage with 11 opening quarter points for Cairns, and 16 for the first half.

That kept the Breakers in a degree of touch and eventually they found some offence in the second half and it was Next Star Rayan Rupert who gave them the first lead.

Barry Brown then closed the deal and the Breakers prevailed by four to improve to 4-2 on the season and to keep the Taipans winless at home in NBL23 while undefeated on the road.

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On a tough outing offensively for both teams, it was DJ Hogg and Barry Brown who stood out. Hogg was on fire early on his way to 25 points for the Snakes, but didn’t get enough support with the Breakers defence terrific.

New Zealand held Cairns to just the 64 points on 33 per cent field goal shooting.

Brown, meanwhile, returned from a tight hamstring with 24 points for the Breakers showing what an offensive weapon he is.

Jarrell Brantley got going in the third quarter before fouling out midway through the fourth to finish with 13 points and four rebounds for New Zealand.

Izayah Le'afa added 11 points, Will McDowell-White seven points and four assists, and Dererk Pardon seven points, eight boards and two blocks while limiting the influence of Keanu Pinder.

New Zealand coach Mody Maor was proud of the fighting spirit shown by his team.

"There's a group of people who play for the Breakers and work for the Breakers, and they gave everything that they have in this stretch," Maor said.

"We've played four games in nine days and I think we felt the weight of the load with the travel and continuous everything. We needed a bit of a shake up and the guys responded like I knew they would, and I'm really happy that the result reflected it."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">DERERK PARDON TOO BIG TOO STRONG ???<br><br>Watch live & free ? 10 Peach & 10play | Every game live on ESPN via Kayo & Foxtel. <a href="https://t.co/FPq2XhV2ud">pic.twitter.com/FPq2XhV2ud</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1584037656257695745?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

On top of the 25 points and five rebounds for Hogg on 4/11 three-point shooting, Bul Kuol finished with 13 points and four boards, Shannon Scott six points, eight assists and six rebounds, and Pinder six points and 12 rebounds.

Taipans coach Adam Forde just felt the game was a grind and hopes his team can find some more offensive cohesiveness.

"Everything seemed like a bit of a grind today. It was a great turnout with a touch over 4000 and I think about the part I played in that by amping up the importance of us wanting to put a good product on the floor for everyone to get behind," Forde said.

"Even that first quarter when we did a good job defensively, we just couldn’t get out of the teens each quarter and the ball stuck. Everything was just unnecessarily held up and there was a lot of errors that we made.

"It was just unfortunate and it's a disappointing result but the main thing now is that we have to learn from it, we have to build towards moving forward and we've got a week to prepare for another tough game in Sydney."

Thank goodness for DJ Hogg in the first quarter. He scored the game's first 10 points including two three-point knockdowns with the Breakers going on to miss their opening 15 field goal attempts.

They even missed their first free-throw but eventually Barry Brown opened their account at the charity stripe and with a field goal with 8:25 gone in the quarter.

That would be New Zealand's only shot made in the quarter as they equalled the NBL record of five points for lowest ever first quarters. Cairns didn’t do a whole lot better offensively but did lead 16-5 thanks to 11 points from Hogg.

In fact, Hogg had 11 points on 4/6 shooting while the rest of his team went 1/7 for five points and the Breakers had the five points on 1/17 shooting. The two teams outside of Hogg went 2/24 for 10 points.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">???????? ?? ??<br><br>The <a href="https://twitter.com/CairnsTaipans?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CairnsTaipans</a> forward is doing what he LIKES today ?<br><br>Watch live & free ? 10 Peach & 10play | Every game live on ESPN via Kayo & Foxtel. <a href="https://t.co/vWCLirG7ub">pic.twitter.com/vWCLirG7ub</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1584025855646236672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Cairns stretched that advantage to 22-9 early in the second quarter before the Breakers finally got something going and went on a 7-0 run to close the gap to four.

However, the Snakes responded starting with a triple from Jonah Antonio and finishing with a three from Hogg to be back up double-digits, and still leading 32-23 by half-time despite Izayah Le'afa hitting New Zealand's only three of the half in 17 attempts.

After a horror opening to the game including missing all six shots in the first quarter, Jarrell Brantley got going early in the second half for the Breakers. He hit consecutive three-pointers to make it a four-point ball game.

The Snakes still clung to a five-point lead at three quarter-time before the Breakers hit the first five points of the fourth term, and then a three-point bomb from Next Star Rayan Rupert put them in front for the first time with six minutes to play.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rip Rip BOOM ?<br><br>It was steal central before WMW dropped a huge triple ?<br><br>Watch live & free ? 10 Peach & 10play | Every game live on ESPN via Kayo & Foxtel. <a href="https://t.co/rtVqRAQYzx">pic.twitter.com/rtVqRAQYzx</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1584038425123962880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 23, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Mirko Djeric and Brown traded three balls with things heating up. Hogg and Brown then did the same but the Breakers' job was becoming tougher with Will McDowell-White and Brantley fouling out.

However, Le'afa hit a three with just over two minutes to go to see them lead by that but there was plenty left to play out. Shannon Scott regained a one-point lead for the Snakes with 36.6 seconds to go.

Out of a timeout, Brown attacked the rim and was fouled where he made both with Keanu Pinder fouling out to put New Zealand back on top. Scott missed a good look for the Snakes with Brown fouled and made the pair again to ultimately seal the win.

The Taipans now don't play again until next Saturday on the road to the Sydney Kings. The Breakers remain on the road to the Adelaide 36ers on Friday night.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 4

CAIRNS TAIPANS 64 (Hogg 25, Kuol 13, Pinder 6, Scott 6)

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 68 (Brown 24, Brantley 13, Le'afa 11)

BOX SCORE