R13 Preview: New Zealand Breakers vs Perth Wildcats

When: 7.30pm (AEDT), Tuesday 13 April

Where: Silverdome, Launceston

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

The last time
Perth 85 (Cotton 24, Mooney 17, Steindl 12) d New Zealand 75 (Delany 30, T Webster 11, Weeks 11), Round 9, John Cain Arena, Melbourne

The Breakers continued their trend of fast starts in this Round 9 encounter, leading by 10 early in the second term behind a red-hot Finn Delany. But Perth did Perth things, upping their defence, and Bryce did Bryce things, putting the ball in the basket, and the Cats unleashed a 56-27 burst over the next 18 minutes to put the contest beyond doubt.


The now
Perth didn’t do many Perth things in Adelaide, completely outplayed by a hungry 36ers side. With Bryce Cotton shut down, and the Sixers aggressively hunting the Cats’ counters, they struggled to put points on the board for the second game in a row. The champs are now a game behind Melbourne on the Hungry Jack’s NBL Ladder, and face a key stretch of five games against teams outside the top four. Of course, their past two losses have been against sides in the chasing pack, and further slip-ups will have the Phoenix on their tail.

New Zealand are hanging onto that chasing pack by the skin of their teeth, having dropped seven of their past nine contests. They are only two losses behind fourth-placed Illawarra, which gives hope, but they’ll possibly need to win 14 of their final 18 games to reach the post-season. Four of the Breakers’ next five games are at the Silverdome in Launceston – interrupted only by a trip to Perth – so they need to take to their temporary home quickly, and that starts by defending the arc and winning the possession game against the Cats.


The stats

 - In their Round 9 clash, the Breakers held Perth to just 8 offensive rebounds. Against the rest of the NBL the Wildcats average a league-best 12.1

 - New Zealand only coughed up 11 turnovers in that game, but the Cats converted that to a 20-4 advantage on points from turnovers in their 10-point win

 - In the past two games, Perth averaged 70.5ppg on 32 points from ‘ones and threes’. Over the rest of the season they’ve scored 89.9ppg on 47 points from ‘ones and threes’

 - In their one game against New Zealand, the Wildcats shot 6-of-17 from long range. Against all other opponents they’ve averaged 10-of-30.5


The key men

Finn Delany – Talk about stepping up. Finn’s first 11 games produced 11.2ppg, 1.4 triples at 28 per cent and 1.5 foul shots. At that point, someone switched him into superstar mode, his past seven contests producing 21.1ppg on 2.3 trifectas at 40 per cent and 4.1 FTAs. Last time against Perth he had 30 points at 71 per cent from the field and 3-of-6 from deep, and Delany presents a troublesome match-up for the Cats’ frontcourt.

Todd Blanchfield – Over the past six games, Blanchfield has averaged 11.5ppg at a wayward 37 per cent from the field and 11-of-43 from outside, while pulling in only 2.5rpg. In his previous six outings he blistered with 17ppg at 50 per cent, 19-of-41 treys and 3.8rpg. When the Wildcats offence was humming in didn’t matter, but now they're in a mini-hole their Terrico White replacement needs to hit shots and get on the glass.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Blanchfield reduces the margin with his second triple! <a href="https://t.co/39wYsCdMz6">pic.twitter.com/39wYsCdMz6</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1380793703183216641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The quotes

It was another gutting loss for the Breakers in Melbourne on Saturday, the third time in four games they’d fallen by single figures.

The loss means the playoffs continue to fade into the distance just as Rob Loe and Corey Webster return, and William McDowell-White and Levi Randolph join the team.

“I think today we are just a little bit extra disappointed. We have hope in our team because for a long time we were shorthanded and now we have a few new players and we've got a functional new roster,” coach Dan Shamir said.?

“We have to remember that one guy is coming back off a surgery, two players are new to the team. We didn’t make shots but we couldn't really catch rhythm offensively, and it's disappointing but we’re hoping that quickly we will get to play winning basketball.”

There was one real positive, Finn Delany, who unleashed a one-man blitzkrieg to the tune of 33 points at 67 per cent to almost carry his team home.

“Just being aggressive, that’s really it,” the Kiwi power forward said modestly.

Coach Shamir was more forthcoming, knowing with Jack White sidelined the Flying Finn had an athletic advantage no matter who United matched up on him.

“Against a lot teams in his position we’re looking to run a few actions for him that create a lot of opportunities for him, he took advantage of it, came very focused and really had a great game,” Shamir said.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Season-best for Finn Delany in points out of roll/pop situations, as well as in transition <a href="https://t.co/376hmo6sed">pic.twitter.com/376hmo6sed</a></p>&mdash; Jordan McCallum (@jordanmcnbl) <a href="https://twitter.com/jordanmcnbl/status/1380872630471823361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


“Unfortunately one guy playing at this level is not enough, we need to play together collectively at a higher level, hopefully we will get it soon.”

It was a very similar story in Round 9 when the Breakers and Wildcats met.

Since the departure of Nick Kay, the Cats have needed to problem solve the power forward position, particularly at the defensive end.

Jesse Wagstaff has more than earned his stripes, but like David Barlow for Melbourne, his days of being able to defend uber-athletes like Delany are mostly past.

Jared Bairstow and Luke Travers had certainly played their role in the Cats’ 15-5 start, but they’re not the answer to Delany. Finn knows it, Shamir knows it, and they exploited it mercilessly in Round 9.

The Tall Blacks star scored 30 points at 70 per cent, including 9-of-11 inside the paint. Delany scored 28 points in quarters one, two and four, and Perth’s ability to starve him of supply after interval was a key to their win.

“Delany was outstanding,” coach Trevor Gleeson said.

“We had a hard time containing Delany early on, I thought we did a great job holding him to two points in that third quarter and we got the break on them.”

And that D, as it so often does, sparked Perth’s offence, racking up 33 match-winning points in the third term.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Todd Blanchfield SYKE<br>??<br>John Mooney SLAM <a href="https://t.co/81PnHSttyO">pic.twitter.com/81PnHSttyO</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1380808401387548678?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>



“Just our intensity on defence, we created a lot of point from turnovers, we started to move the ball a little bit and setting good screens, so it was a really good break for us,” Gleeson said.

“There was a lot of physicality out there to start the game, we had to get the feel of the game and get into our counters which I thought we did when the game got going.”

They weren’t up for the physical battle on Saturday in Adelaide, humbled like they haven’t been since visiting the Phoenix early in the season.

“Adelaide were far the better team, they were playing harder, executing better, coached better, wanted it more than we did, we seemed to be going through the motions and it was very disappointing on our part,” Gleeson said.

“To be honest I don’t know where it came from, we’ve been playing at a very high level, and there were a lot of passengers out here today.

“We’ll go back and look at it and ask ourselves why, and hopefully we don’t see a performance like that again … You take our body of work, this is a one-off hopefully, that we play the right way and get back to playing Wildcat basketball.”