Breakers Keep Rolling Over Phoenix in Christchurch

The New Zealand Breakers further entrenched themselves as the team to beat this NBL season with an offensive onslaught in the first half to set up a supremely impressive 110-84 victory against the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

Two of the league's top four teams met for the third time already this season having split the first two meetings. It was the Breakers who lit up Christchurch Arena to open Round 9 on Thursday night with a blistering opening half.

Barry Brown Jr and Rob Loe combined for 22 of a season-best 37 points in the first quarter for New Zealand before they went into half-time leading by 24 with the Phoenix just unable to get anything from anyone but Alan Williams and Mitch Creek who had 31 of their 39 points.

From there, New Zealand cruised to the 26-point win to improve to 11-3 on the season having now won five straight. The Phoenix are 7-6 having come into the game after two dominant wins over Melbourne and Illawarra by a combined 49 points.

Not only did the Breakers do well locking down the Phoenix, their offence flowed again fresh off the highest score by any team this season on Sunday against Brisbane – 116.

New Zealand shot 56 per cent from the floor and drained 14/25 from downtown with Barry Brown Jr leading the charge with 31 points on 11/18 shooting and 4/6 from deep.

Jarrell Brantley maintained his standout form with 18 points and four rebounds with 3/4 from downtown while Rob Loe was back firing for 17 points on 6/7 shooting in less than 10 minutes.

Will McDowell-White also had 14 points and 11 assists with Dererk Pardon contributing eight points and 10 rebounds.

Breakers coach Mody Maor was especially happy with the defensive performance to set up the win.

"I was very happy with the way we defended in the first half. I thought we picked our spots and controlled the areas that we wanted to control on defence," Maor said.

"Even when our defence did break down there were a few scrambles that I did enjoy from our guys putting in multiple efforts. That, for me, is where it starts."

Take out Williams and Creek and it was a rough night for the Phoenix. Williams finished with 29 points and 13 rebounds on 12/15 shooting with Creek adding 19 points and four assists in his 301st NBL game.

Trey Kell III did have eight points, five rebounds, three assists and three steals as well for South East Melbourne who only managed to shoot 5/22 from downtown as a team.

Phoenix coach Simon Mitchell couldn’t say match afterwards except give full credit to the Breakers.

"We certainly saw the potential of that happening," he said. 

"Last week against Brisbane they were extraordinary and that was one hell of a shooting display, but we made it a little easier for them than it probably needed to be. 

"I thought we got hit on screens too easy, didn’t fight over and Pardon and Brantley may not have had their biggest nights statistically but just the impact they have on the ball handlers to free them up, they did a fantastic job of that with us early. 

"It's always hard when you give up a 37-point opening quarter and it was similar to our game last time against them, only the roles were reversed."

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The Phoenix beat the Breakers by 22 last time they met in Auckland and the visitors started well again in Christchurch with Alan Williams and Mitch Creek helping them to an early 6-3 lead.

The Phoenix still led 18-15 late in the first quarter on the back of a Gary Browne triple and then and-one from Williams, but then the Breakers turned it on in remarkable fashion.

Barry Brown Jr hitting the floor was the spark and he scored eight points as part of a 10-0 run to put the home team on top. 

Rob Loe then closed the quarter with a pair of three-pointers as they had their best opening term of the season to lead 37-23 while knocking down 6/8 from downtown as a team.

It was slow going for both teams to start the second quarter but then the Breakers were able to blow the game wide open. Williams was doing what he could up one end, but the Phoenix had no answers for New Zealand up the other.

Brown and Jarrell Brantly hit three-pointers to push the lead out beyond 20 points and by the time Cam Gliddon knocked one down from the land of plenty, the Breakers were up 63-39 at the half.

Brown had 21 points at the break with New Zealand shooting 60 per cent as a team while the Phoenix just couldn’t get anything out of anyone but Creek or Williams.

Williams had 19 points and nine rebounds, and Creek 12 points with the pair combining for 31 of the 39 points for their team. They shot 10/12 between them from the field and their teammates 3/15 for just eight points.

New Zealand maintained its control through the third quarter and went into three quarter-time leading by 21 with Brown finishing spectacular on the buzzer to go to 29 for the night himself.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Barry Brown has the ? on a string ?<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports and Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/A6XMovqi4R">pic.twitter.com/A6XMovqi4R</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1598227026850111488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 1, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Loe then caught fire again to start the fourth quarter to keep New Zealand's lead above 20 points before a pair of triples to Brantley pushed the advantage out to 27.

Ryan Broekhoff answered with two threes of his own for South East Melbourne but it was party time for the Breakers in Christchurch and they celebrated with five late points including a triple for Dan Fotu.

Both teams back up again in Round 9 to play on Saturday with the Breakers first up hosting the Perth Wildcats at Spark Arena. The Phoenix take on Melbourne United in the Throwdown at John Cain Arena.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 9

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 110 (Brown Jr 31, Brantley 18, Loe 17)

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 84 (Williams 29, Creek 19, Kell 8) 

BOX SCORE