R15 Preview: New Zealand Breakers vs Adelaide 36ers

When: 7.30pm (AEDT), Monday 26 April

Where: Silverdome, Launceston

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

The last time
New Zealand 106 (C Webster 29, T Webster 29) d Adelaide 62 (McVeigh 20, Johnson 17) - Round 7, John Cain Arena, Melbourne

Adelaide headed into this NBL Cup clash with a 6-6 record, having been within four of Melbourne at the death two nights earlier before falling short. Their downfall against United was an 8-31 opening term, and they doubled down against New Zealand, trailing 6-32 after 10 minutes. To make matters worse, they lost Isaac Humphries to injury four minutes into the game, and had no answer for the Webster brothers, who bagged 29-apiece.


The now

Is this game last chance saloon for Adelaide and the Breakers? Not quite, but very close. With both teams having lost 15 games already and having challenging fixtures over the final six rounds, a slip up on Monday would likely leave them room for only one or two more Ls before they would be relying on SE Melbourne or Sydney faltering badly on the run home.

The Breakers are in the midst of a run of 26 of 31 games in Victoria, Tasmania or New Zealand, including the final seven games in their homeland. However, they’re coming off five games in 13 days, and it showed in their loss to Cairns. Adelaide have seven of their final 11 on the road, but they’ve played just four games in 21 days heading into this one.


The stats

 - New Zealand’s 106 points against Adelaide in Round 7 was their only triple-figure score of the season. Only on two other occasions have they reached 90 points in regulation

 - The Breakers have hit 12.7-of-34.7 triples in three games against the Sixers, making 37 per cent. Against all other teams they’ve averaged 8.2-of-25.5 treys at 32 per cent

 - Adelaide scored 47 points at 41 per cent and had 5 turnovers in the opening half against Melbourne, then managed just 31 points at 31 per cent with 11 turnovers over the final 20 minutes

 - In their Round 14 road win over the Phoenix, the 36ers shot 26 free throws. They are averaging 24.4 foul shots against New Zealand, compared to 16.5 against the rest of the NBL


The key men

Daniel Johnson – With Isaac Humphries and Tony Crocker back in the line-up, DJ’s hot streak came to an end, making just 5-of-19 in the loss to Melbourne. In Adelaide’s past five wins he’s averaged 26.6 points at 59 per cent, but in three meetings with New Zealand he’s managed 16.7ppg at 33 per cent. The 36ers need him shooting over Finn Delany and stretching Colton Iverson away from the basket if they are to post a winning score.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Been doin&#39; it for years. <a href="https://t.co/YjQxDju5bN">pic.twitter.com/YjQxDju5bN</a></p>&mdash; Adelaide 36ers (@Adelaide36ers) <a href="https://twitter.com/Adelaide36ers/status/1385861502473625600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Levi Randolph – In the Breakers’ two Round 14 wins, Randolph averaged 21.5ppg at 58 per cent and just 1 turnover as NZ averaged 87 points at 48 per cent. In Cairns, he managed just 6 points on 3-of-8 shooting and coughed it up 5 times, with his team scoring a lowly 68 points at 35 per cent. Randolph is the missing link in the Breakers’ offence with Lamar Patterson gone and Tai Webster injured, and his battle with Brandon Paul will be pivotal.


The quotes

The disappointment was palpable in the Breakers camp after Friday’s loss to Cairns, which ended a promising two-game winning run and made their climb to the playoffs incredibly steep once again.

“We couldn’t get the ball to fall. They got a big lead early, we were able to fight back but I think offensively we didn’t get in our groove like we had in the past couple of games,” import Levi Randolph said.

“It’s a make or miss game, some nights the ball just doesn’t fall and you’ve got to other things to stay in the ball game, which we did, our defence was what brought us back, and it just didn’t fall for us the right way today.”

It was the 11^th time in in 22 games the Breakers have failed to reach 80 points this season, and they’ve recorded just one victory in those contests.

While their defence has been solid throughout, ranking fifth a smidgeon behind Sydney, their O sits only above Illawarra.

Those struggles shone through again last Friday, but coach Dan Shamir took some hope from their last quarter, when they scored 24 of their 68 points to turn a 19-point third quarter deficit into a two-point lead with 3:30 to play, while lashing their second quarter D when Cairns got going.

“In the fourth quarter we did get to put 24 points on the board, a lot of free throws, some minutes we executed well, especially Finn and Corey got us some good looks,” he said.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here come the <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NZBreakers</a> ??<br><br>We&#39;ve got a one point game in Launceston <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/DztI3kttDG">pic.twitter.com/DztI3kttDG</a></p>&mdash; The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1385550952833245186?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“But in the big picture, it started cold for both teams, they got away with it first, they made some shots (in the second term).

“We weren’t as sharp as we should be, when the first quarter finished 12-10 you need to really, really grind and get all the little things defensively until things start happening offensively and that didn’t happen.”

The picture was reversed for Adelaide, whose run of three wins from four games was shut down late by a physical Melbourne United.

The 36ers had the game on their own hand, when a 6-2 run to start the final term tied scores at 69, but from there they went dry and Melbourne peeled off a 14-0 burst.

“During that stretch we had multiple looks at the basket and we did not finish. Is that a fatigue factor, is that the squad being back together and we’re not quite sure on rotations?” coach Conner Henry asked post-game.

“The other thing is multiple times we take quick shots, we have one-pass possessions and sometimes they're good looks, but the message is with the group, sometimes we can pass up our first opportunity for a second opportunity.”

There were plenty of positives to take from it, however, with Isaac Humphries getting through 15 minutes upon return as he rid himself of two months’ rust.

“There is no minutes restriction with him, so as much as we can keep feeding him to bring him along we will,” Henry said.

“I'm not sure when we’ll bring him back into the starting line-up, I’ll see how he recovers after the game, I’ll see how he goes tomorrow morning when we head down to Tassie to see how the foot reacts, but he seems pretty good.”

While Brandon Paul played arguably his best all-court game with 20 points at 57 per cent from deep, 5 rebounds, 3 o-boards, 2 steals and a giant swat.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">S P?K E D. <a href="https://t.co/i0dakbwGtP">pic.twitter.com/i0dakbwGtP</a></p>&mdash; Adelaide 36ers (@Adelaide36ers) <a href="https://twitter.com/Adelaide36ers/status/1385869630623739908?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 24, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


“Brandon was really engaged on both ends, offensively, he was rebounding the ball at both ends, he was flying around, his extra efforts, his one percenters that we talk about, he was ready to go tonight,” Henry said.

“He had a nice game, got a little fatigued, got to manage those parts more efficiently with him.”

That all augurs well for the crunch game against the Breakers, where a win would lift Adelaide within three games of the Phoenix and Kings in third and fourth.

“I've said this all along, we have enough (talent) and finally now after two and a half months we have our full squad,” he said.

“We can continue to fight every single night, we’re not out of this thing yet, we've got 11 (games) left, we don’t have a whole lot of home games because we were lucky with COVID and we had a full heavy schedule at the beginning of the season.

“Sometimes you play your best basketball on the road, you come together, the group’s united, they like to play, they’ve been really working hard over the last two-and-a-half weeks and we've won some games, some big games and we've been trying to focus on getting Ice and Crock back to health.

“It’s not over, we can string some wins together and see who comes back to the back, and if we’re close there maybe we make some noise right near the end, but we've got a lot of basketball left to play.”