Breakers Too Much for Kings in Game 1

Saturday, March 4, 2023

All season long the New Zealand Breakers have been tremendous defensively and efficient at the offensive end, and that's exactly what they delivered in Game 1 of the Championship Series to beat the Sydney Kings 95-87.

All season long the New Zealand Breakers have been tremendous defensively and efficient at the offensive end, and that's exactly what they delivered in Game 1 of the Championship Series to beat the Sydney Kings 95-87.

The Breakers opened the NBL Championship Series at Qudos Bank Arena on Friday night producing a tremendous defensive performance to limit what the league's highest scoring team, and the defending champions, could do at the offensive end on their home floor.

That was not such a surprise given how good New Zealand has been defensively all season. The question then was if they could find enough ways to score and that didn’t prove a problem either with a masterful point guard performance from Will McDowell-White.

He ran the team expertly to be the standout player on the court for the game with the Breakers getting bursts from a raft of players throughout the game including 13 points in the fourth quarter alone from Barry Brown Jr to see them ice the eventual eight-point win.

Winning in Sydney was no surprise for New Zealand either given they went 11-3 away from home this season with the Kings now under pressure to level the series in Auckland on Sunday.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Has Barry Brown Jr just put this game to bed?! ?<br><br>Who else but WMW with the assist? That's his ninth of the night ?<br><br>Catch the final moments live on ESPN via Kayo Freebies 10 Peach and 10 play/Sky Sport & Prime in NZ ? <a href="https://t.co/thfYF4UrBy">pic.twitter.com/thfYF4UrBy</a></p>— NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1631602719697047552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Breakers limited the Kings to 87 points on 44 per cent field goal shooting and 7/22 from three-point range even though they got to the line and went 20/28.

New Zealand ended up shooting 45 per cent from the floor and hit 11/29 while going 20/26 at the foul line themselves with McDowell-White ending the game with 19 points, nine rebounds, nine assists and two steals.

He had plenty of help too with 19 points from Brown along with Jarrell Brantley with 16 points and seven rebounds, Dererk Pardon nine points and two assists, Tom Abercrombie seven points and four boards, and Rob Loe seven points and five rebounds.

Breakers coach Mody Maor was pleased with the way his team was able to have the game played on their terms for the most part.

"Controlling the pace is important when you play against Sydney but it's very hard to do. I felt we were solid there but still think we can be a lot better," Maor said.

"They're the best team in the league, they are going to go on runs. We expect them to go on runs, we're prepared for them to go on runs and we need to respond. For us it's always about going back to who we are and establishing the way we play, doing things the right way and controlling the tempo."

Justin Simon kept Sydney in the game in the first half where he had 13 of his 18 points for the game while also finishing with six rebounds and three blocks. Jordan Hunter then scored 12 of his 15 points in the fourth.

However, the big guns of the Kings struggled with MVP Xavier Cooks only managing 11 points, four rebounds and two assists, and Derrick Walton Jr 12 points and six assists before missing much of the fourth quarter with cramp.

Kings coach Chase Buford gave credit to the Breakers for getting the game on their terms and now will look for Sydney to learn from it in Game 2.

"Credit to New Zealand, in the first half they made a bunch of shots and really kept us at arm's distance," Buford said.

"Then every time we tried to threaten a run in the second half, they just seemed to have an answer for us. There were a couple of breakdowns to give them some easy baskets in transition which is uncharacteristic of our defence.

"But there's a lot of good opportunities for us to go back and look to correct some things especially on the offensive end. We just got so pushed out and so stagnant so it was hard to get anything going."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kouat Noi at the buzzer? Where have we seen that before? ?<br><br>He's given the Kings a ????? of momentum heading into the half ?<br><br>Live on ESPN via Kayo Freebies 10 Peach and 10 play/Sky Sport & Prime in NZ. <a href="https://t.co/uvGiiRRRNU">pic.twitter.com/uvGiiRRRNU</a></p>— NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1631589381453795328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The first points of the Championship Series went to a man all too familiar with the occasion, Breakers captain Tom Abercrombie. New Zealand soon led 6-2 as well when Rayan Rupert got on the board before the Kings steadied.

A three-pointer from Derrick Walton Jr got them going and consecutive buckets to Justin Simon helped the reigning champs to the 13-11 advantage.

Rob Loe hit the floor, though, for New Zealand and knocked down the open three and from the Breakers got rolling. Leading into quarter-time, Cam Gliddon and Izayah Le'afa also hit the court to land triples and then a dunk from Dererk Pardon had them leading 30-23 after one.

New Zealand really got on a roll for much of the second quarter. They might have entered the series as the league's best defensive team, but it was their offence on fire while in fairness, it was set up by their defence.

Teenager Rupert delivered a four-point play early in the second period, Kings championship winner Tom Vodanovich then landed a three ball and the Breakers were leading by 14.

Sydney did answer out of a timeout with a three-pointer from Angus Glover and then went on a 9-2 run, but the Breakers continued to have the answers including scoring seven points including a tech foul when MVP Xavier Cooks vented his frustrations over a flop call.

While Kouat Noi closed the half with a buzzer-beating three for Sydney, New Zealand was well on top leading 54-43. The Breakers shot at 48 per cent with 12 points from McDowell-White and 10 from Brantley while Sydney's leading scorer was Simon with 13.

McDowell-White continued his brilliant game to start the second half with a three-point bomb to put the Breakers back up 14, and New Zealand was still up 12 soon after with a triple from Abercrombie and 11 when Brantley nailed one from deep not long out of a timeout just as Sydney had some momentum.

The Kings were building, though, and a three-point play from Simon, a nice drive and finish from Glover and eventually a three from DJ Vasiljevic closed the gap to four just before three quarter-time.

It was a crafty finish from Abercrombie that kept New Zealand on top 76-70 by three quarter-time and then the fourth quarter become the Jordan Hunter and Barry Brown Jr show for their respective teams.

Hunter scored Sydney's first 12 points of the quarter and that was after he scored six points in total in the previous series with the Cairns Taipans.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">??'? ??? ???? ?<br><br>Rayan Rupert is getting it done on both ends ?<br><br>Live on ESPN via Kayo Freebies 10 Peach and 10 play/Sky Sport & Prime in NZ. <a href="https://t.co/Q66ebDonzF">pic.twitter.com/Q66ebDonzF</a></p>— NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1631584594334982146?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

However, Brown was warming up for the Breakers and by the time he dropped an open triple in the corner, he put New Zealand back up 91-84 with 2:40 to play and that gave him 13 points already in the quarter.

With Walton already out of the game for Sydney, Cooks also sat with two minutes to play and McDowell-White stretched the Breakers lead to nine, and from there they claimed the Game 1 victory 95-87.

Game 2 will be at Auckland's Spark Arena on Sunday with a sold out crowd looking the cheer the Breakers to a 2-0 lead in the series.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL FINALS – CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES GAME 1

SYDNEY KINGS 87 (Simon 18, Hunter 15, Walton Jr 12)

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 95 (McDowell-White 19, Brown Jr 19, Brantley 16)

BOX SCORE