R11 Preview: Brisbane Bullets vs New Zealand Breakers

When: 5.30pm (AEDT), Saturday 27 March

Where: Nissan Arena, Brisbane

Broadcast: SBS Viceland; Sky Sports NZ; SBS On Demand; Twitch

The last time
Brisbane 88 (Froling 20, Drmic 16, Hodgson 16) d New Zealand 67 (T Webster 19, Delany 12), Round 10, Nissan Arena

There wasn’t much the Bullets did wrong in this Round 10 meeting, apart from Nathan Sobey, Harry Froling and Anthony Drmic going 1-of-6 from the charity stripe. Orlando Johnson was packing his bags and Vic Law struggling with illness but it didn’t matter, Froling, Drmic and Matt Hodgson touring the facility and picking up slack, while Nathan Sobey belied his ‘quiet’ 12-point night by going +30 in 28 minutes. Finn Delany was outstanding for NZ in the power forward battle, but apart from Tai Webster he had little help.


The now
Brisbane’s Round 8 loss to the Breakers at the NBL Cup was a setback, preventing Andrej Lemanis’ men establishing a gap with the chasing pack and keeping NZ in the playoff hunt. Since then, however, the Bullets are 4-1 to make it seven wins from their past 10 games, scoring at an all-world pace but, more importantly, showing in last week’s revenge W over New Zealand that they do have what it takes to lock down on D.

In contrast, the Kiwis are 1-5 since toppling Brisbane, with only two scores above 80 points as their offence splutters. It was a heart-breaking loss in Bendigo on Thursday, with luck running against Dan Shamir’s men, whose tired legs once again failed to run out the four quarters. They urgently need the arrival of Levi Rudolph and William McDowell-White for depth, while Corey Webster is even more of requirement to fix the O.


The stats

 - The Breakers have been outscored by 53 points in their past four second halves, averaging just 31.3 points after interval

 - New Zealand rank last in points per game, made field goals, three-point percentage, free-throw percentage and assists, while committing the most turnovers

  - The Bullets held New Zealand to 67 points at 39 per cent in Round 10. In their previous eight games they’d given up 98.1ppg at 48 per cent

 - Brisbane’s winning score of 88 points against NZ was their lowest total since losing to SE Melbourne in Round 6, a span of eight games

The key men

Harry Froling – It’s been some time since the NBL has seen a sloppier start to a season than Froling produced this year – dropped passes, missed lay-ups, clumsy fouls, casual threes, missed assignments – a performance not befitting of his immense talent. But last week against NZ the old Harry was back, in the starting five and exposing their lack of frontcourt depth with 20 points on 8-of-12 from inside, 1-of-2 from outside, 3 o-boards and 2 assists.

Finn Delany – Finn fought the Law and, while Vic’s team won, Delany showed just how good he is as an all-court power forward. The Nelson superstar had 12 points and 9 rebounds while holding Brisbane’s elite import to 7 points at 14 per cent. Over the past four games the flying Finn has delivered 73 points at 56 per cent, 27 rebounds, 11 assists and hit 8 triples at 36 per cent, and his battle with a vengeful Vic is sure to be a highlight of this clash.

https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1375026385748561922


The quotes

When things go bad in life, psychologists tell us our body has three choices it can make – fight, flight or freeze.

In the life of a professional basketballer, that can be translated to work, walk or sit.

For much of this season, Harry Froling has been doing the latter. After grabbing 23 rebounds and dishing 8 dimes in 53 minutes as a starter across the opening two games, Froling’s court time dried up as Andrej Lemanis searched for combinations that worked and sloppy mistakes hurt Harry’s claim.

It took the former 36er another five games to log his next 53 minutes, and that was his exact burn in the five contests leading up to the Round 10 clash with New Zealand.

But the departure of Orlando Johnson and a bout of illness through the Bullets camp elevated the 211cm talent back into the starting line-up and in 32 impressive minutes Froling showed the Breakers what he has been doing with his time.

“Harry’s been working really hard over the last three or four weeks and it was pleasing to see him play the way he played,” coach Lemanis said.

“It was more effort areas, I thought he got himself going. On the first play of the game he got an offensive rebound and a put-back, on the first play of the third quarter we had a pretty poor shot, Harry had an offensive rebound and a put-back.

“He got into it defensively and then the rest of it flows. As a team we do share the ball, we go where we need to go and we are prepared to go at mismatches intelligently, so you’ll get your fair share if it’s your night, but if you do the effort things good things tend to happen for you.”

https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1373212668958445571


While Froling’s 20 points and over-the-backboard shot got the attention, it was his attention to detail in the other areas of the game that will earn in more court time in Saturday’s rematch.

“Drej’s been harping on staying ready and waiting for your opportunity and putting in the work,” Froling said.

“Tonight I came out and got the start and I just tried to do the little things, getting on the boards and setting good screens, and when you do the little things it’s funny what happens down the line, you start hitting some miracle shots.”

Despite half the team fighting a bug, the Bullets brought energy from tip off til touch down as eight players spent 16 or more minutes on the floor, playing at a high intensity throughout to blow the Breakers away in the second half.

“It’s a cumulative effect over the course of 40 minutes. What happens in the third quarter is also a function of what has gone before, and I thought what we did tonight was came out and gave the effort required,” Lemanis said.

“When we played them in Melbourne they basically came in and poked us in the eye in the first quarter and we were chasing our tail from there.

“They are a very aggressive and physical defensive team and I thought in Melbourne they got us playing on our back foot, whereas today we were more prepared for that mentally and we matched it with them in the effort areas.”

They more than matched them, grabbing 20 offensive boards to 12 despite missing nine fewer shots

https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1373226499139010560


“It was a tough night for us in few aspects. The first one is defensive boards,” Breakers boss Dan Shamir said.

“They had 20 (offensive rebounds), 14 in the first half. They really controlled that. Part of it is this is a good offensive rebounding team, and the second reason is probably every time Colton plays 14 minutes for us and gets into foul trouble it’s tough for us to control what happens in the paint.”

It was an even tougher night in Bendigo on Thursday as the Kiwis controversially dropped a close one to Melbourne United as their lone centre, Colton Iverson, was again unable to avoid the whistle, as has been the case with so many import bigs in NBL history.

“Colton Iverson fouled out the last three games in a row. Last game he played 14 minutes,” Shamir said.

“Just as a comparison, last year he played 30-something games in the Euroleague, which is a very physical league, he knows how to play in the VTB and fouled out twice the whole season.

“The year before he played 55 games in the ACB in Spain and in the (FIBA) Champions League and he fouled out twice the whole season, so that really hurt us.”

But true to the New Zealand spirit, Shamir hasn’t given up on the season yet.

“These are not easy days, but we keep on fighting through and coming to every game prepared and we play hard, and we give everything we've got.

“We’re going to keep improving and hopefully we can keep these guys on the floor for 30-35 minutes and we have three more bodies joining us.

“We have hope ... we will never quit, we will always keep fighting and now we head to Brisbane to do exactly that.”