Breakers Win Second Straight

Sunday, October 16, 2022

Izayah Le'afa fired in his first game against his former team, Rob Loe came up huge and Rayan Rupert was exciting as the New Zealand Breakers broke their drought in Australia beating the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Saturday night.

Izayah Le'afa fired in his first game against his former team, Rob Loe came up huge and Rayan Rupert was exciting as the New Zealand Breakers beat the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Saturday night.

The Breakers were fresh off beating the Tasmania JackJumpers in Auckland last Friday night, but still hadn’t won in Australia since defeating the Adelaide 36ers back on March 12.

That all changed at John Cain Arena on Saturday night and while the Phoenix will be glad to have Ryan Broekhoff, Trey Kell and Zhou Qi back on the floor, they still need some work on getting that chemistry right with the Breakers impressive in the 85-77 win.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vtYlgy1VgO4" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

There was plenty to like from the all-round performance from New Zealand even if they only shot 1/10 from three-point land in the second half. However, they still opened up a 16-point lead on the back of the hot hand from experienced centre Rob Loe.

He scored nine straight points to break the game open in the fourth quarter to finish with 18 for the game to go with six rebounds on shooting 7/11 from the floor and 3/5 from downtown in just over 22 minutes.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rob Loe is still yet to miss a three in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> for the <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NZBreakers</a> ?<br><br>Don't sleep on the Le'Afa dime either ?<br><br>Follow the action live on ESPN via Kayo Sports and Foxtel. <a href="https://t.co/604YPIpEOT">pic.twitter.com/604YPIpEOT</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1581213865320542208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Izayah Le'afa was also outstanding in his first game for the Breakers against the Phoenix who he played the first 58 games of his NBL career with. He had a career-high 10 assists to go with 14 points, six rebounds and two steals.

Jarrell Brantley added 13 points and five rebounds for New Zealand, Will McDowell-White 12 points, seven boards and three assists, and Rayan Rupert 10 points, six rebounds and three assists to go with some super impressive defence.

The Breakers also did it all without import guard Barry Brown and Cam Gliddon.

New Zealand coach Mody Maor was delighted with how his team stepped up without that pair along with captain Tom Abercrombie.

"Just 10 or 15 minutes before the game you could sense in the locker room that the guys believe. That doesn’t matter that we are missing players with Cam not playing and Barry not playing, they didn’t think about those excuses at all," Maor said.

"They were locked in on the game. This was the first time we've had a lead like that late in a game and it was interesting how they responded. We are lacking two of our main veterans in Cam and Tom so these are kind of the settling forces in this group, but there's a lot of character in there.

"For us when things get shaky it gets down to defence and rebounding. When we do that well we can hang with any team in the league."

South East Melbourne welcomed back Broekhoff, Zhou and Kell, but it will take some time for everything to click. Mitch Creek again top-scored with 20 points, four rebounds and two assists on 9/15 shooting.

Kyle Adnam added 17 points and seven assists, Broekhoff 11 points and eight rebounds, Alan Williams nine points, and Zhou eight points and four rebounds.

Phoenix coach Simon Mitchell was disappointed in the effort defensively but conceded offensively it's all about his group building their chemistry as they come together.

"Starting with the defence, I don’t think we were aggressive enough getting into the ball. They were able to pick us off with guys getting downhill and our ability to recover and put side pressure on was lacking early," Mitchell said.

"There was some possessions there where we started to get a little bit better so I thought we had a little bit of momentum there in the back end of the third and start of the fourth.

"But for the most part I didn’t like our endeavours there on that side of the ball and it had been an area we'd improved in the last couple of games but it was lacking tonight. And from an offensive standpoint, it's just getting on the floor.

"The blokes need to be together and we've had a pretty rough trot and chemistry is something you need to build by being on the floor together."

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">BROEKHOFF FROM DEEP TO END THE QUARTER ?<br><br>Strong way for Rowdy to drop his first points of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> ?<br><br>Follow the action live on ESPN via Kayo Sports and Foxtel. <a href="https://t.co/yejpH9Uxle">pic.twitter.com/yejpH9Uxle</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1581215589401776129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Not much separated the two teams throughout the first quarter and they shot a combined 1/9 from three-point land and 16/41 overall, but at quarter-time New Zealand led 19-17 despite a half-court prayer that went in on the buzzer from Ryan Broekhoff.

That was Broekhoff's first score of the season in his first appearance and then Alan Williams had a hot patch down low for South East Melbourne to open the second term.

He made three buckets and got to the foul line in the opening minutes to give the Phoenix a brief lead, but the longer the quarter went the more the Breakers worked on top.

The Breakers hit four threes in the second term while pulling down eight offensive rebounds to go into the main break leading 45-38 as they chased that elusive win in Australia.

Zhou Qi was doing what he could to try and keep the Phoenix in touch by getting aggressive offensively to start the second half. He converted a three-point play, but the Breakers remained on top and still led by seven at three quarter-time.

The game was still up for grabs with South East Melbourne back within five to start the fourth term, but then the Breakers put the game to bed and it was all starting with Rayan Rupert's impressive work and quick hands at the defensive end.

Then it became the Rob Loe show. In his 145th NBL appearance, the versatile big man had perhaps his biggest offensive patch in his career by knocking down a three and hitting three more buckets for an individual 9-0 run.

That saw the Breakers' lead go from seven to 16 in the blink of an eye and while the Phoenix tried to fight back late including three balls Trey Kell, Owen Foxwell, Ryan Broekhoff and Kyle Adnam, it wasn't to be.

The Breakers broke through to win in Australia for the first time since March 12 last season.

It's the only game of Round 3 for the Phoenix who now prepare to take on the Breakers at Trust Arena. Before that, New Zealand now travels to take on the Illawarra Hawks in Wollongong on Monday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 3

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 77 (Creek 20, Adnam 17, Broekhoff 11)

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 85 (Loe 18, Le'afa 14, Brantley 13)

BOX SCORE