R11 Preview: New Zealand Breakers vs Melbourne United

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Melbourne broke their losing streak thanks to their defence, now they need to shut down New Zealand and break their playoff spirit to move back to first place on the Hungry Jack's NBL ladder.

When: 7.30pm (AEDT), Thursday 25 March

Where: Bendigo Basketball Stadium

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

The last time
Melbourne 87 (Landale 23, McCarron 17, Hopson 16) d New Zealand 84 (T Webster 32, C Webster 14, Abercrombie 13), Round 8, John Cain Arena, Melbourne

So close but yet so far for the struggling Breakers, who led this Round 8 clash by two early in the final term, only to see Melbourne unleash an 18-5 run in just over five minutes to put the contest to bed. It was development player Mason Peatling who sparked the charge with six-straight points, before Jock Landale, Scotty Hopson and Mitch McCarron finished the job.

The now
New Zealand executed well that night, shooting at a high clip and getting to the foul line regularly, but their inability to convert free throws and defend their own paint proved costly. Those are two general malaises the Breakers have for some time possessed, and their insane supporters must lament, but to which their depleted roster currently has few answers.

Melbourne’s offence has certainly been lamentable of late, coinciding with the absence of Hopson, who may have struggled statistically since crossing the Tasman, but whose speed was crucial in creating looks when the defence locked down ball movement. He’s not back on Thursday, so United will have to repeat the defensive dose they served on the Hawks.

The stats

- Melbourne held Brian Goorjian’s men to 31 per cent from the floor, 36 per cent from two, 5-of-25 from three and 9 free-throw attempts, while committing just 11 fouls

- United have averaged 73ppg in their past three outings. Their past six games have produced just 8.2 triples at 30 per cent. Prior to that they were hitting 11.3 treys at 39 per cent

- The Breakers have won points in the paint in three of their four wins, compared to 0-1-9 in losses. In their past five defeats, NZ are -68 on points in the paint

- New Zealand currently rank last in free-throw percentage (69%), the fifth time in the past seven seasons shooting below 70 per cent. In that time, only Illawarra in 2017/18 and 2018/19 have also slipped below that mark

The key men

Mitch McCarron – Last time, New Zealand hit a glitch and it was money making Mitch, who poured in 17 points at 75 per cent inside, while grabbing 7 rebounds and dishing 7 dimes. It was a prime-time point guard battle with Tai Webster, who had 32 points and 2 assists.

That defensive assignment will be crucial for McCarron, but so will his perimeter shot. After nailing 42 per cent of his triples across the opening 10 games, the fringe Boomer has gone 7-of-25 at 28 per cent in the past six, coinciding with Melbourne’s slump from the arc.

Colton Iverson – When it comes to picking, Colton walks a fine line, and would have been pinged for endless illegal screens under recent seasons’ interpretations. As it is, he is one of the absolute keys to NZ’s individual offence – they rank dead-last with 13.3apg – creating space for the Websters to work.

It’s his inability to avoid contact with fleet-footed penetrators that is causing concern, the Breakers 2-3 when he can play 29 minutes or more, but 2-7 when their big is bench-bound. Landale went 3-of-4 from range last time against NZ, and he’ll be sure to draw Iverson away from the hoop this time around.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">He really can do it all <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StandWithUs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#StandWithUs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JockLandale?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JockLandale</a> <a href="https://t.co/Y7hLsq490b">pic.twitter.com/Y7hLsq490b</a></p>— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ/status/1373502103637790721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The quotes

There was an air of optimism about the New Zealand Breakers after their tight 87-84 loss to Melbourne in Round 8.

“A three-point game against a great team in Melbourne United, still a lot of positives to take away,” point guard Tai Webster said.

“We’re getting better with every game, boys are starting to embrace everything that’s going on, it’s obviously not an easy thing for us to come over here and stay over here, but everyone’s on the same board and getting better every day.”

The Breakers had won two on the bounce leading into that game, would go on to defeat Cairns five nights later to sneak back in touch with the top four, and they had played well enough to win against United.

Dan Shamir’s men shot 50 per cent from the field, 36 per cent from range, won second-chance points 16-9, and held Melbourne to 6 triples and 14 free-throw attempts.

What proved costly was an 8-32 deficit in bench scoring, making just 13-of-21 from the foul line and allowing Melbourne to shoot 58 per cent on twos, including 10-of-17 in the final term as McCarron, Hopson and Landale picked them apart.

“I think it was a good game overall,” Shamir said.

“Tough, intense, good effort from both teams, probably we ran out of gas a little bit in the fourth quarter, they scored more than the rest (of the quarters).

“I thought the (defensive) coverages were pretty good for three quarters, I think they got close to 30 points in the fourth.”

While some pundits ask why NBL coaches don’t play their star players close to 40 minutes per night, they only need ask Shamir.

Since that promising burst of three wins from four, the Breakers have worn down, Webster, Finn Delany, Tom Abercrombie and Colton Iverson asked to carry a huge burden that their counterparts don’t face.

The result was a pounding in Brisbane where the Kiwis looked flat, their third-straight double-figure defeat.

“It was a tough night for us in few aspects,” Shamir said.

“The first one is defensive boards. They had 20 [offensive rebounds], 14 in the first half. They really controlled that.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">CIRCUS ANTICS FROM <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryFroling?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@harryfroling</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL21?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL21</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WEAREBNE?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WEAREBNE</a> <a href="https://t.co/Dn02Z5CgJa">pic.twitter.com/Dn02Z5CgJa</a></p>— Brisbane Bullets (@BrisbaneBullets) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrisbaneBullets/status/1373215141982998529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“Part of it is (Brisbane) is a good offensive rebounding team, and the second reason is probably every time Colton plays 14 minutes for us and gets into foul trouble it’s tough for us to control what happens in the paint.

“On top of that we didn’t make shots today. In a lot of areas we played with a lot of effort and did a few good things that we wanted to with a few (Bullets) guys that we wanted to limit, but these things hurt us a lot.”

Melbourne are facing some tough times too. Having stared down the injury bug across the first eight weeks of the season, the dam wall broke with four Ls on the trot before they broke the drought against the Hawks last Sunday.

“We obviously had out poorest performance of the season up in Sydney, give them credit, they played really well,” coach Dean Vickerman said.

“I think we try to stay pretty level as a team, win or loss, but then you have some outlier games and that one was really poor, so we had some good honest meetings after the game and the next day, about going against the identity.

“We didn’t play with our identity and that’s to defend, and to play at a good pace, shoot a certain number of threes, and (other) things that we do, we just didn’t play like us.”

It wasn’t so much the losses that got to Vickerman, it was the lack of genuine fight in their last two defeats.

“There were some times when it got too hard, and it hadn’t got too hard all year,” he said candidly.

“We had some losses, we had some periods where we were poor but we fought back, so I think that was biggest message about this game, it wasn’t about Xs and Os, it was about getting back and making sure that was an outlier, come out and play the right way, we did that tonight with our defence.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">MAS?N x FR?LING<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/StandWithUs?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#StandWithUs</a> <a href="https://t.co/QHPv74rAD5">pic.twitter.com/QHPv74rAD5</a></p>— Melbourne United (@MelbUnitedHQ) <a href="https://twitter.com/MelbUnitedHQ/status/1373502509948399617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 21, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“To hold anyone in this league to 65 on the second leg after a road trip is a great effort. We still turned it over 18 times and don’t shoot the ball the way we want to shoot it, but credit to the group about the way they bounced back today.”

Shamir will be looking for a similar response, and while reinforcements are imminent – with Corey Webster soon to return from injury and new recruits Levi Randolph and William McDowell-White on their way – it will be up to the same resilient crew to make some hay in Bendigo and Brisbane this week to keep their playoff hopes realistic.

“There is the short term and a bit of a longer-term view,” Shamir said.

“In the short term we’re playing Melbourne United in a few days and then we’re back here (in Brisbane), so we’ll have to play better, and we can.”