Breakers with too much despite Giddey's triple-double

Despite a career-first triple-double from Josh Giddey, the New Zealand Breakers were a dominant presence in Launceston on Monday night to beat the Adelaide 36ers 93-77.

While the triple-double of NBL Next Star Giddey deserves to be recognised as the Sixers teenager became the youngest Australian player in league history to achieve the feat, it was a night at the Silverdome in Launceston where the Breakers showed they were far too good for the 36ers overall.

The Breakers got off to a flying start to lead 16-6 early on Monday night in Tasmania. Even though Adelaide did fight back and got to within a point during the second period, from the momentum Daniel Johnson cut New Zealand's lead to 55-51 early in the third quarter, it was all New Zealand.

From that moment the Breakers outscored the 36ers 38 points to 26 to end up winning comfortably by 16 on the back of another standout Finn Delany performance, but he had plenty of helpers too.

Delany's career-best season continued as he put the Breakers on his back to finish with 23 points, four assists and two rebounds on shooting 7/10 from the field, 3/5 from downtown and 6/7 from the free-throw line.

On the night he equalled the legendary Mika Vukona on the New Zealand all-time games played list, Tom Abercrombie was tremendous as well for the Breakers with 19 points being aggressive to draw four fouls and hit 7/7 at the charity stripe.

Levi Randolph is warming to life with the Breakers nicely too with another 15 points, six rebounds, three assists and two steals while Corey Webster enjoyed coming off the bench to produce 15 points.

William McDowell-White ran the ship well too with 13 assists, four steals and four rebounds.

Breakers coach Dan Shamir was happy with a lot of what his team did for the whole game, and for them to get rewarded for that performance throughout the second half.

"It was a good game for us. We came with the right mentality, the right speed and we shared the ball collectively and 21 assists should be the way we play a little bit more often. We did that and it was a good win for us," Shamir said.

"In the first half we came with the right attitude and we played OK, but we had a fix a few things defensively from the first half. Once we did that and got a few more stops, and kept playing with speed, sharing the ball and making good reads, things were able to go our way."

Josh Giddey has been threatening a triple-double all season with the 36ers and he broke through to achieve that on Monday night in Tasmania finishing the evening with 12 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists. He shot well too going 5/6 from the field.

Daniel Johnson fought hard again for Adelaide with 20 points while the signs were more than encouraging that Isaac Humphries will quickly get back to his early season form on return from a foot injury.

In just his second game back after sitting out 11 with that complaint, he showed good signs with 14 points and two rebounds on 6/9 shooting and getting through almost 21 minutes of court time.

Tony Crocker also had 13 points on 3/5 three-point shooting but Adelaide couldn’t overcome 15 turnovers and getting just 14 points on 4/19 shooting between Brandon Paul, Sunday Dech and Jack McVeigh.

Adelaide coach Conner Henry was happy that his team was able to take better care of the ball in the second half, but not with the fact they couldn’t take advantage of it and the game got away from them in the second half.

"I think it was a tale of two scenarios. In the first half they had 16 points in transition off nine of our turnovers, and we were better with that in the second half," Henry said. 

"But in the third quarter we had five or six pretty good looks at the rim, and some nice looking jumpers and couldn’t finish. 

"That led to some defensive breakdowns and then the next thing you know they've got a lead, I burn a timeout, get a technical and the game gets away from us. 

"We weren’t able to execute like we were in the first half on the offensive end even though we took care of the ball better, and it was a tale of two halves."

The Breakers were coming off losing at the death on the same floor to the Taipans just three days ago and were determined to atone, and showed that early on racing to a 16-6 lead in the opening four and-a-half minutes.

New Zealand took advantage of Adelaide's four opening quarter turnovers to score nine points from those and shot 64 per cent from the field to head into quarter-time leading 25-19.

The 36ers made their best run of the game early in the second quarter starting with some buckets from Isaac Humphries and Jack McVeigh before Josh Giddey scored himself and created for his teammates to bring them back within a point when Tony Crocker knocked down a triple.

New Zealand was able to settle, though, starting with three balls from Corey Webster and Finn Delany. Webster nailed another just before half-time but Adelaide kept things close closing the half with a 7-3 run to cut the Breakers lead to 47-43.

But again the Breakers took advantage of Adelaide's nine turnovers for 16 second chance points at the half before Delany blew the game wide open to open the third quarter with 10 points in the space of five minutes.

Delany would go on to have 23 points to three quarter-time with his team up 12 heading into the fourth, and then it was all over as a contest to start the fourth term when New Zealand scored the first seven points to suddenly lead by 19, and go on to win by 16.

The Breakers now have a fascinating battle with Melbourne United on Wednesday night as they try to snap the league-leaders' nine-game winning streak. 

The Sixers head back home to host the Brisbane Bullets on Saturday night in their first home game at Adelaide Entertainment Centre since beating the Perth Wildcats back on April 10.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 15

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 93 (Delany 23, Abercrombie 19, Webster 15, Randolph 15)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 77 (Johnson 20, Humphries 14, Crocker 13) 

BOX SCORE