Maor "Buying Back" Confidence From Breakers Faithful

After struggling in the face of immense obstacles over the last two seasons, NBL23 has, so far, looked like the season in which there’s no problem too great or small to stop the New Zealand Breakers.

They earned an emotionally charged win in Tasmania on Friday night before encountering cancelled flights, massive delays and horrendous disruptions to their preparation ahead of Sunday’s game with Adelaide.

It didn’t matter though as they continued their run to defeat the fancied 36ers by six points during a heart-stopping contest.

“It took everything we had,” Breakers head coach Mody Maor said of the hard-fought victory.

“We got home at 3am and we were in the gym watching film at 1:30pm ... it’s really important for us to play well in front of our fans. We really want to buy back the confidence in what the Breakers are.

“Early in pre-season I spoke with the guys and said there’s going to be moments where you need your B-game or your C-game beat someone else’s A-game. Adelaide were in New Zealand 48 hours before we were so we needed our C-game to be there again, and I’m very proud of what we did.”

After trailing by eight points at the culmination of the first quarter the Breakers rebounded to take a narrow lead into the half-time from break. From there the game ebbed and flowed with momentum shifts but a final quarter blitz saw New Zealand gain the breathing room they wouldn’t give up for the rest of the game.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">3 days<br>37 hours of travel <br>3 cancelled flights <br>6 hours of delays <br>13 hours from tarmac to tip off <br><br>= our 8th win of the season ? <a href="https://t.co/DuEqU4BvYe">pic.twitter.com/DuEqU4BvYe</a></p>&mdash; Sky Sport New Zealand Breakers (@NZBreakers) <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers/status/1594210406041808896?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Despite the Breakers being the most defensively astute side in the NBL this season Maor says he believes the win was down to pure effort.

“This wasn’t typical Breakers,” he said of the team’s defensive performance.

“We gave [up] 20 points in every quarter, we sometimes don’t give up 20 points in a half – that’s an exaggeration but we keep teams to a very low score.

“We got beat in ways we don’t usually get beat. You could tell they (Adelaide) were a step faster, so we weren’t going to win through our legs. It was going to come through our heart, through our grit.

“The guys stayed the course even when things didn’t go our way. They just kept battling and battling.”

Much like he has been for the entire season the performance of import centre Dererk Pardon was key to the Breakers emerging from the clash victorious.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">DP and JB left their fingerprints all over that W last night!<br><br>A double-double each and Dererks second in two games ?? <a href="https://t.co/lfEcdxcirL">pic.twitter.com/lfEcdxcirL</a></p>&mdash; Sky Sport New Zealand Breakers (@NZBreakers) <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers/status/1594482170017370112?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 21, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

After finishing the victory over Tasmania with 19 points and 10 rebounds, he emerged from the clash with the 36ers with player of the game honours after notching up yet another double-double – against Adelaide he finished with 19 points on 7-8 shooting and ten rebounds.

“Calling Dererk a good traditional big is something that makes me laugh,” Maor said.

“He definitely has characteristics you look for in a traditional big – he protects the paint, he’s a good screen and roller, but he does so much more for us.

“He defends the perimeter and today he had a game-winning steal on a swing pass [against] a forward, and then he brought the ball coast-to-coast to go and finish.

“Yeah, he does the basics. Great, every good player does – the fundamentals are important. There’s a lot more to what he does.

“I don’t think there’s even one player on our team you can call a ‘traditional’ player, and I think that’s what beautiful about us.”