R2 Preview: Adelaide 36ers v New Zealand Breakers

Friday, January 22, 2021

Adelaide are hoping to have Josh Giddey back in uniform as they grind out their fourth game in eight days, welcoming Lamar Patterson and the Breakers to town for their opening game of the season.

Adelaide 36ers v New Zealand Breakers

When: 7.30pm (AEDT), Friday 22 January

Where: Adelaide Entertainment Centre

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

The last time
New Zealand 113 (Abercrombie 31, Hopson 21, Delany 21) d Adelaide 89 (Johnson 24, McVeigh 20, Randle 10), Round 18, 2019/20, Spark Arena

The Tom Abercrombie show took over Auckland this night, the Breakers legend dropping seven trifectas en route to 31 points as the home team rode roughshod over the limping 36ers, with Scotty Hopson, Finn Delany and Sek Henry joining the party. Daniel Johnson and Jack McVeigh combined for 44 points at 61 per cent for the visitors.

The now
As was the case last season, it is a new-look Breakers starting line-up with Tai Webster, Colton Iverson and Lamar Patterson slotting into the first five, and Corey Webster returning from his Chinese sabbatical to likely fill the sixth man role once he returns from his avocado injury. Abercrombie, Delany, Rob Loe and Jarrad Weeks are the only returning key players, so the ability to gel quickly will be important to avoid last year’s slow start.

Adelaide are at risk of falling behind the eight-ball after falling to the Phoenix on Wednesday night, and a further failure against NZ would drop them to 1-3 after four home games. The 36ers’ have struggled to put the ball in the basket consistently, their league-worst defensive rebounding percentage a big factor in locking their new-look roster in the half-court.

The stats
- Adelaide are averaging 79 points in regulation so far this season, compared to 92.3ppg in Joey Wright’s seven years

- The 36ers currently have a defensive rebounding percentage of just 60 per cent. In the previous seven seasons they averaged 70 per cent of their d-boards

- Last season, New Zealand allowed the fewest three-pointers and ranked 2^nd in opposition scoring and defensive rebounding, but gave up the second most two-pointers at the second-highest percentage (53%)

- The Breakers started NBL20 a wobbly 4-10, then finished coach Dan Shamir’s debut season 11-3 to narrowly miss the playoffs

The key men
Tony Crocker – Plenty of questions were asked when the 34-year-old Crocker was signed as a key piece of Adelaide NBL21 campaign, but he has added 24 points at 45 per cent in the past two games, showing the ability to create his own looks under shot-clock pressure and also playing an important part of the 36ers’ team defence. Perhaps most important on Friday night will be his ability to stay in front of Patterson individually and make him shoot over a hand as often as possible.

Lamar Patterson – When it came to playing Adelaide, Patterson was simply Lamarvellous last season, averaging 25.7ppg at 51 per cent to go with 5.3apg against the leaky 36ers. Interestingly, Brisbane were 8-2 in NBL20 when Patterson scored 25 or more, compared to 6-10 on his lower-scoring nights. Can the Breakers utilise Lamar’s sublime ball-dominant skills without being as reliant on his output?

The quotes
While some coaches like to play down their team’s chances at season’s start, Breakers boss Dan Shamir is having none of that.

“We have a very good team. There are not a lot of unknowns,” he told Stuff media in New Zealand.

“Our guys are proven, experienced, and we have a strong core that knows how we’re playing, knows our coverages, our system. Lamar is a guy you can rely on (and) Colton knows how to play this kind of system.”

While Breakers fans would understandably be concerned about another slow start, given the number of new faces and the fact the injury bug has already bitten Corey Webster and Rob Loe, there is reason to believe this group will mesh quickly.

Iverson has played previously under coach Shamir, while Tai Webster knows the core Kiwis in this group like the back of his hand.

“These are guys I put on the black jersey with for the Tall Blacks, and to put on the Breakers jersey now as well with them, it lights my world up,” Webster told Stuff.

“Guys like Tom Abercrombie, Rob Loe and my brother, I looked up to for a long, long time. To be able to play with them is awesome.”

Perhaps the other question mark is how they will cope with this disrupted season, having left Auckland to be based in Melbourne, then dashing to Tassie when COVID threatened, and now taking on the role of constant travellers.

“It’s been pretty tough being moved around from Auckland to Melbourne to Hobart and now over here in Adelaide,” reserve guard Jarrad Weeks told Stuff.

“But as soon as that ball goes up everyone will be so excited to actually play a basketball game, the energy and everything is going to be there as we finally get to show the league what we’re about this year.”

And it’s pretty obvious Weeks hasn’t lost his sense of humour in the process.

“The NBL saying is expect the unexpected this year, and no one expected Corey to stab himself,” he joked.

“I’m ready to go, excited to get the extra minutes and play for the first time in what seems like forever.”

For Adelaide, it’s a very different story, well ensconced at home and already well into the rhythm of the new season.

Friday’s battle with the Breakers will be their fourth in eight days, and by the end of Round 3 they will have graced the Adelaide Entertainment Centre five times.

Yet while that sounds like the easiest way to start such a disrupted season, it has been anything but so far.

“We've got to get some easier baskets,” coach Connor Henry said.

“We’re not getting great looks, we’re having to grind everything out and that’s tough to do and then ask the boys to back it up on the defensive end.

“Offence is a work in progress for all of us right now, we have to figure it out.”

However, the key to solving that puzzle appears to be on the defensive glass, where opposition teams are getting second shots on four out of every 10 shots they take, and that means lots of time in the defensive half for the 36ers and limited opportunities to run.

“We’re not getting any transition points, any easy open looks, so we need to increase our pace,” Henry said.

In their sole win over the Phoenix in Round 1, the Sixers ran up a season-high 89 points in regulation and 116 overall, with superstar-in-the-making Josh Giddey pulling in 9 d-boards and busting out into the open floor.

Coach Henry is quietly confident his Next Star will be back in uniform after missing Wednesday’s loss, and hopeful that will get his team’s open-court mojo back.

“We missed the young guy tonight, he pushes the ball when he gets it all the time and it will be good to have him back on Friday,” Henry said.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Hey <a href="https://twitter.com/DraftExpress?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DraftExpress</a>, you up? Because Josh Giddey should be going all the way ? on that next Mock Draft ?<br><br>16 points<br>11 rebounds<br>7 assists<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://t.co/XYsnm7iTXO">pic.twitter.com/XYsnm7iTXO</a></p>— The NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1350693373204520961?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 17, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>