Breakers Bound for Glory Days Resurgence?

The New Zealand Breakers’ run of four championships in five years is one of the all-time great eras of any NBL side in history. The middle of that incredible run was also the last time the Breakers faithful experienced a home semi-final.

With their Thursday night win over Illawarra the Breakers are one step closer to securing their first home semi-final series since 2013, and their first semi-finals appearance since 2018. Their destiny is now in their own hands – all they have to do is beat the Brisbane Bullets on Saturday.

Barring a ridiculous score-line in Friday’s Perth/Cairns clash, that win will be enough to lock up second spot.

Breakers head coach Mody Maor says any potential playoff opponent is the furthest thing from his mind.

“I don’t care, not even a little bit,” Maor said of the upcoming finals. “All I care about now is beating Brisbane and then we will worry about who is coming out of the play-in.

“You’ve got to take this league game by game and we know how fragile it is.”

Breakers captain Tom Abercrombie played a key role on that all-conquering Breakers side of the early 2010’s – and even won the Grand Final MVP in 2011.

He echoed his coaches sentiments, but added the prospect of a home semi-final will be a huge motivating factor in Saturday’s clash with the Bullets.

“Obviously it puts extra importance on that game, and it’s one we have to go and get,” he said.

“We’ve got to go and earn that second spot, and we’re going to have to go and play well.

“It’s a pretty big carrot for us.”

If the Breakers want to defeat the Bullets they’ll have to put in a better performance than they did in the first half against the bottom-placed Hawks.

While a defensively stingy third quarter turned the game around, New Zealand went into half-time trailing Illawarra by 16 points.

Maor says he needs to figure out what caused the first half meltdown.

“It was an abysmal first half from us in every aspect. Why? We need to go and find out,” he said.

“The response in the second half was great, both from and effort and from a focus standpoint … Illawarra played well, competed, and played with confidence and swagger.

“We showed a lot of character with what this game means to us, and how important it was to come into the second half and play steady, strong and consistent.”

The Breakers travel to Brisbane to take on the Bullets in their final game of the regular season on Saturday night.