R7 Preview: Sydney Kings v New Zealand Breakers

When: 5pm (AEDT), Thursday 25 February

Where: John Cain Arena, Melbourne

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

The last time
Sydney 84 (Ware 22, Martin 20, Vasiljevic 17) d New Zealand 74 (C Webster 25, T Webster 13, Delany 12), Round 5, Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney

When Rasmus Bach drained a triple to cap a 10-0 run early in the final period, it seemed win number two might be within the Breakers’ grasp, but over the next six minutes Sydney unleashed a 20-2 burst to the delight of their long-starved fans, who hadn’t seen a win at home in almost 12 months. Casper Ware and Jarell Martin combined for 14 points in that run and 42 overall, while the Webster brothers added 38 for the Kiwis.


The now
It doesn’t look pretty for New Zealand, who are struggling with life permanently on the road and the significant sacrifices they have made to be a part of this season. The result is a defence that can’t defend the arc nor the paint, and a star-studded offence that has yet to deliver for close to 40 minutes on any night. The positives for Breakers fans is their team has shown they can match the Kings, so they should head into this meeting with confidence.

Sydney won’t be too down about their loss to the Wildcats – even though they still haven't found answers to the champs’ slick team offence – as they are currently producing their best offensive basketball to date, which they’ve needed to in order to record Ws so far this season. Their biggest challenge without Jarell Martin and Xavier Cooks is maintaining defensive aggression without their remaining big men ending on the bench in foul trouble.


The stats

 - In their past two games, the Kings have averaged 100 points at 51 per cent from the field. Over their opening seven outings, those numbers were 87.4 and 44 per cent

 - Sydney are 3-4 when keeping teams to 90 points or less. Last season they were 18-4 when they achieved that mark

 - New Zealand rank last for offensive rating, points per game, field-goal percentage, turnovers and assist-to-turnover ratio (0.94)

 - The Breakers also sit last for opposition three-point percentage and free-throw attempts, while ranking seventh for defensive field-goal percentage

The key men

Corey Webster – Here he comes. After an avocado-induced slow start to the season, C-Web has found his form and poured in 47 points at 60 per cent over the past two games, nailing 7-of-15 from deep. When firing, Webster is a world-class scorer, but with Patterson injured they need him creating more than 1 assist per game, something he is more than capable of.

DJ Vasiljevic – Why is Casper Ware firing again? Firstly, he’s a superstar. Secondly, Shaun Bruce is an underrated running mate. Thirdly, the rookie sensation that is Vasiljevic is taking some serious defensive attention away, having averaged 18.8ppg at 46 per cent in his past six games. How do you stop DJ and Casper when they’re both firing? You don’t.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This guy <a href="https://twitter.com/DejanMv?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DejanMv</a> <br><br>DJ becomes the first Kings rookie in Club history to score double-digits in his first eight games. <br><br>He’s got 14 points for the half. <br><br>??? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeTheKings?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeTheKings</a> <a href="https://t.co/o5z1kueOl7">pic.twitter.com/o5z1kueOl7</a></p>&mdash; Sydney Kings (@SydneyKings) <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings/status/1363385897136267269?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 21, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The quotes

It simply doesn’t get any easier for the Breakers, who have lost Rob Loe for the season and now Lamar Patterson for a month with a knee injury, on top of all the challenges they have faced on and off the court in their 1-5 start.

“It can be consuming, we’re in a hotel room or a basketball court, we’re missing balance, but we just have to get to work and get better,” forward Finn Delany said after their loss to Sydney.

Delany has had a solid start to the season, averaging 13.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks, and he cuts a determined figure in the face of mounting losses.

“Of course it’s fixable, we know the players we have, what we’re capable of, we have a lot of belief in ourselves. We have that belief, everyone has that,” he said.

“There’s no time when we’re thinking what’s the point, we know why we’re here, we know it’s going to be tough, but no one’s feeling sorry for us and we’re not feeling sorry for ourselves.”



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="und" dir="ltr">??? <a href="https://t.co/aouvy4X872">pic.twitter.com/aouvy4X872</a></p>&mdash; Sky Sport Breakers (@NZBreakers) <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers/status/1363734661780807685?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 22, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Breakers don’t have to dig too far to find reason for belief. They started NBL20 with a 2-8 record before charging to within a whisker of the playoffs, and there were certainly positive signs in Sydney two weeks ago.

“We were obviously in the game, we were up five with probably six minutes to go, but overall as a group we’re struggling with a lot of simple actions,” coach Dan Shamir said.

“I think we played in a lot of areas in control to a certain extent (but) it’s not enough to win and we’re much better than that.”

While the loss of Patterson may appear a negative, last season it was Corey Webster’s departure to China that brought balance to their line-up and launched a series of win streaks.

This year, it may be C-Web who benefits from addition by subtraction, with more opportunities to be an offensive focal point.

He certainly showed plenty against the Kings, pouring in 25 points at 56 per cent before backing that up against the Hawks in the opening week of the NBL Cup.



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">COREY SUBS ON <a href="https://t.co/mw7VOEIoTL">pic.twitter.com/mw7VOEIoTL</a></p>&mdash; Sky Sport Breakers (@NZBreakers) <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers/status/1360154937791979527?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 12, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“We really need Corey, as everybody knows, his ability to make plays for himself, to open everything up a little bit for us, his talent, his ability to be aggressive,” Shamir said.

“For me as a coach, it’s not always easy to know if he’s bothered by his left hand or not, and it was great to see him play like that.”

While Adam Forde and Co will be doing plenty of planning for the Webster brothers, it’s the defensive troubles NZ gave his men last time that will likely be front of mind.

“Credit to New Zealand, they did a great job pushing us out of those areas we wanted to capitalise in, we only had three assists at the half and nine turnovers,” Forde said.

“That’s what New Zealand did a good job of, we definitely wanted to get those good looks for Jarell, New Zealand made those passes really difficult.

“Even when he was open they took our vision away and our guards were trying to manoeuvre around those big bodies that were out there showing.”



<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Moller with authority. ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WeTheKings?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WeTheKings</a> <a href="https://t.co/GjdaapoDtO">pic.twitter.com/GjdaapoDtO</a></p>&mdash; Sydney Kings (@SydneyKings) <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings/status/1364113211222487041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 23, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>


Martin is now on the sidelines, but Sydney still found a way to rack up 200 points in the past two games without their star big man, with nine Kings scoring 6 points or more in at least one of those contests.

Where the frontcourt injuries are really impacting, however, is their bigs’ ability to execute Forde’s aggressive on-ball defences, something they’ll need to do better against the Websters than they did on Bryce Cotton, who scored and assisted at will.

“We got in foul trouble early, regardless of what we thought of those actual foul calls it made us very tentative and soft, and we backed off,” Forde said after the loss to Perth.

“The blitzing was working more in their favour by the end of it, you can’t even call it a blitz, we ended up trying to chase and screen our own man and the rotations off the ball were softer because everyone was fearful of fouling.

“That’s definitely on us not to get rattled by what the calls are and move onto the next thing.”