Game 1 Win "No Big Deal" to Maor, Breakers

The New Zealand Breakers have fired the first shot of the NBL23 Championship Series.

The season’s Cinderella story walked into Qudos Bank Arena and, courtesy of a strong first half showing, emerged with a Game 1 victory to take back to Auckland.

Will McDowell-White fell just one assist and one rebound short of the first Championship Series triple-double in the 40-minute era, while Barry Brown Jr added 19 points of his own.

Head coach Mody Maor says his side won’t be getting ahead of themselves heading into Game 2.

“It’s just the first quarter, or however you break it down,” he said post-game. “It’s no big deal at all.

“We’re, generally speaking, a process-oriented team. We care about how we do things.

“This is a tough group, I have a lot of faith in them, we know we can play better than what we played today and that’s where our focus is going to be.

“There’s not a lot of randomness in how we play. For every cover we have a response and for every situation we have a way to play, but these are the outlines. Think like a kid’s colouring book – inside the lines be creative, be yourself, be the best version of yourself.”

After the Breakers surged out to an 11-point halftime lead, the Kings pegged the margin back, courtesy of a 20-8 run late in the third quarter.

They couldn’t catch the Breakers though, who largely through the performance of McDowell-White, managed to keep themselves at an arm’s length from their dangerous opponents.

Maor says he’s unconcerned about the moments where it looked like the Kings could break back into the game.

“They’re the best team in the league,” he said. “They’re 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 going back to who we are, establishing the way we play, allowing us to control the tempo, et cetera.

“Controlling the pace is very important when you play Sydney. It’s very hard to do, I felt we were solid there but I still think we can be better.”

The Breakers shot a solid 37 per cent from the three-point line over the course of the game, and took seven more attempts from beyond the arc than the Kings.

Sydney dropped into its key clogging defensive set-up for large parts of the contest, and the Breakers’ bigs made them pay throughout the game.

“We’re a good three-point shooting team,” Maor said. “If you want to put five or four players in the paint, we’re going to find our shooters and we’re going to shoot with confidence.

“If it goes in, it goes in. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. We’re going to keep taking our shots.”

The Breakers return to Spark Arena with a 1-0 series lead.

Game 2 will be played on Sunday, March 5 at 4pm AEDT – live and free on ESPN via Kayo Freebies, 10 Peach & 10 play, and on SkySport and Prime in New Zealand.