Breakers Flex Muscles for Big Win in Brisbane

The New Zealand Breakers got back to winning against the Sydney Kings and with their roster back to full strength, flexed their muscles at the expense of the Brisbane Bullets on Thursday with the emphatic 99-71 road win.

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The Breakers had lost four straight before going into Qudos Bank Arena on Sunday and coming away with the strong win over the league-leading Kings to strengthen their playoff spot, and stay in touch of a top two finish.

However, the Bullets loomed as a tricky proposition on Thursday at Nissan Arena having won three straight and played four strong games since that horror loss to the Kings 15 days ago.

Brisbane was without Jason Cadee, though, and the Breakers welcomed back Barry Brown Jr and Izayah Le'afa to have a full roster available for just the third time this season.

Things were relatively tight through the first quarter, but the Breakers blew the game wide open with 33 points in the second term including a streak of 18-5 through the middle stages.

Another 11-0 run early in the second half ensured the Breakers opened up a match-winning advantage to lead by 25 before cruising to the 28-point win.

The result improves the Breakers to a 15-10 record to be hot on the heels of the 16-9 Cairns Taipans. The Bullets are now 8-18 with two games in their season to go.

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Jarrell Brantley had 17 of his 22 points for the game to set the win up in the first half to go with three assists, two steals and two rebounds on 8/11 shooting from the floor and 3/5 from beyond the arc.

His frontcourt partner Dererk Pardon added 17 points and nine rebounds with Barry Brown Jr returning with 14 points, three assists and two steals. Will McDowell-White, Tom Abercrombie, Cam Gliddon and Rayan Rupert all scored nine points.

Breakers coach Mody Maor was delighted with his team's performance and to have everybody available.

"We played a good game. We kept them to 71 points, which is good and that's our baseline," Maor said. 

"It's nice to have everyone back and even with minutes restriction and finding rhythm and stuff, it's good to have all of our guys. It gives us another gear to push on and another punch off the bench. I'm pleased but it's onto the next one."

Tyler Johnson again top-scored for Brisbane with 20 points and five rebounds with Aron Baynes contributing 13 points and five boards, Nathan Sobey 13 points and eight assists, and DJ Mitchell 12 points and four rebounds.

Bullets coach Greg Vanderjagt was pleased enough with the start from his team but credited New Zealand for just being too good on the night.

"I thought our start was really positive," Vanderjagt said.

"The ball moved, we played from inside out, we did a good job getting Baynes some touches early, Sobes was getting to the rim and we got ourselves to the foul line.

"We defended with the right intent in terms of our disruptions up the floor, but in terms of sustaining all that, their physicality, their depth and that's a really, really good basketball team. 

"They've been consistent throughout the year despite a little patch recently, but their ability to sustain pressure and physicality really sped us up offensively and we had 10 turnovers as a result. When you have that mountain of possession against you, it becomes really difficult."

DJ Mitchell scored a couple of early baskets to help Brisbane to a 6-2 edge and the home team's impressive start continued with Aron Baynes scoring four points as part of a 6-0 run to put them up 14-7.

Breakers coach Mody Maor called a timeout and got the response he was after with his team scoring 11 of the next 13 points including Barry Brown Jr coming on to provide the spark back from his calf injury.

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New Zealand still held a 22-20 lead by quarter-time and then as the second quarter unfolded, they started to really take over the contest.

The Breakers' lead pushed out to seven after early second quarter three-pointers to Jarrell Brantley and Tom Abercrombie. Then after a three-point play for Brisbane from Baynes, the Breakers hit another eight straight points to push that lead out to double-figures.

Another 10-0 run heading towards half-time including triples from Brown and Cam Gliddon saw New Zealand up 17, and it was still a 55-40 advantage at the break thanks to a late and-one from Brown.

Brantley was continuing his hot form with 17 points for New Zealand to the half with Brown adding 12 on his return as they were shooting 61 per cent as a team to be in control with 16 points off the 10 Brisbane turnovers.

Any hope the Bullets were clinging to at half-time was quickly extinguished by the Breakers to start the third quarter. New Zealand went on an 11-0 run with three-point bombs from Abercrombie (two) and Brantley.

That saw the lead blow out to 25 points and even though Tyler Johnson tried to spark the Bullets back into the contest, the Breakers continued to have all the answers and were leading by 20 at three quarter-time.

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The Breakers didn’t show any let up in the fourth quarter and ended up delivering the 28-point victory to improve to 9-3 away from home this season.

Both teams have a short turnaround to playing again on Saturday as part of Pride Round. The Bullets head up to Cairns to play the Taipans while the Breakers take on Melbourne United in a monstrous clash at Spark Arena.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 17

BRISBANE BULLETS 71 (Johnson 20, Baynes 13, Sobey 13)

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 99 (Brantley 22, Pardon 17, Brown Jr 14) 

BOX SCORE