R6 Preview: Illawarra Hawks v NZ Breakers

When: 5.00pm (AEDT), Monday 22 February

Where: John Cain Arena, Melbourne

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

The last time

New Zealand 65 (Henry 17, Delany 16, Hopson 12) d Illawarra 52 (Boone 14, Blanchfield 11, Naar 7), February 2, 2020 at WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong

Well wasn’t this quite the eventful affair. You might look at the scoreboard and think that's an incredibly low-scoring game, well that's because it was called off midway through the third quarter! With it raining outside, the water began leaking from the WIN Entertainment Centre court and wouldn’t stop. That happened with three minutes left in the third quarter and it was decided the score at the time would stand handing the Breakers a win to keep them in the finals hunt while the Hawks' losing slide continued. If you want the last full game the teams played, that was way back on December 22, 2019 with New Zealand beating Illawarra in a thriller, 91-89.

The now

Both teams now come into this game on Monday to open the NBL Cup double-header needing a win. It's the Hawks second appearance already in the tournament within a season while the Breakers are making their debut in Melbourne.

Illawarra started life under the legendary coach Brian Goorjian in stunning fashion winning the first four games after winning just five matches all of last season. But things have got a bit tougher since with the Hawks having lost three of their past four games including their NBL Cup opener against the Cairns Taipans on Saturday. That was after they led by as much as 12 points during the game.

Illawarra's three Americans Tyler Harvey, Justinian Jessup and Justin Simon continue to perform well but the team is still trying to find its groove upon welcoming back Deng Adel and Cam Bairstow after their injury-interrupted starts to the season. They would have felt they let one slip against the Taipans and will want to bounce back strongly against the Breakers.

New Zealand has now had to wait another 10 days since playing their last game which was a 10-point loss in Sydney last Friday night. They have been away from home for more than two months now and due to some cancelled games through COVID-19, they have only played five games in the opening five rounds of the season.

The Breakers have won just one of them so not only have they had to deal with being away from home, but they haven’t been playing the type of basketball they hoped either. But they aren’t short on talent and it does appear a group capable of doing some special things when they begin to click. 

With the pure scoring abilities of Tai Webster, Corey Webster and Lamar Patterson, the all-round talents of Finn Delany and Tom Abercrombie, the presence of Coltor Iverson and then with contributions from Rasmus Back, Daniel Trist and Jarrad Weeks, and while at 1-4 right now, this team has enough tools there to make a charge despite everything conspiring against them.

The stats

- The Breakers find themselves ranked last in a lot of unwanted stats coming into the NBL Cup. They are shooting at a league low 39.6 per cent from the field, 64.0 per cent from the foul line and are committing the most fouls with 21.4 a game

- New Zealand also rank last in assists with 13.0 a game, last in blocks with 2.2 per match and last in scoring with 79.0 points a game

- On a more positive note, the Breakers have won their past six matches against the Hawks by an average of 17.8 points a game

- The last win for Illawarra against New Zealand came on January 18, 2019 when they prevailed in Wollongong 107-96. It has now been more than 25 months since the Hawks have defeated the Breakers

The key men
Deng Adel – Now the Hawks don't need him to come out and put up huge numbers or take over games but they can't afford him to have another game of shooting 0/15 from the field with just two rebounds, three turnovers and three fouls either. The more he struggled on Saturday against the Taipans, the more the Snakes got back into the game. Now we all know how talented he is, he has usually a great shooting touch and with his length, size and athletic ability, he should be quite the weapon for the Hawks. It's now time that he finds confidence in the system and they find a way to get the best out of him

Lamar Patterson – The one game the Breakers have won this season saw it taken over by Lamar down the stretch up in Cairns. His old swagger was back despite that being the first game he came off the bench. By the end of that fourth quarter, his shots never looked like missing, he was willing to take on anyone and anything, and he was automatic at the charity stripe. He hasn’t been quite able to replicate that before or since. But he was a genuine MVP candidate the past two seasons with the Brisbane Bullets and if he can find that confidence and more importantly, efficiency, in this Breakers set up, then he could spark them to make a run

The quotes
Hawks coach Brian Goorjian saw his team cough up a 12-point advantage to open the NBL Cup on Saturday against the Taipans, and didn’t like how they closed the game. He takes on some of that blame as he tries to figure out the best way to get the most out of his deep and talented roster.

"I thought at the end of the third quarter really was depressing. That's how I rotate bodies or use bodies, and I have to work out if I use my timeout and keep the starters out there or do I use what I think is your strength and that's your bench," Goorjian said. 

"Now we've added two guys to the rotation and we don’t look as fluid as we did earlier in the year. I just think I've gotta get Adel into the rotation, I have to get Cam into the rotation and long-term that's going to make us really good. But right now it has been choppy and I'm kind of stuttering on that sideline a little bit as far as how I rotate bodies. Some of it falls on my shoulders."

As for Deng Adel who is coming off the worst shooting night of 0/15 in NBL history, Goorjian just wants to see him let the game come to him more, find other ways to contribute and then take some of the pressure off his shots falling.

"He's just putting a lot of pressure on himself and now they are really laying off him. He can shoot the ball but one of the things we've talked about is that he needs to get involved in the game on the glass, get to the foul line, get a steal or something to loosen the game up," Goorjian said.

"The depressing part for him at half-time wasn’t the 0/7 or 0/8, it was the one rebound. It's a bit of an issue with the whole group in this game where we were offensively orientated but we needed to get stops. 

"Regardless of if he's hitting his shot or not, he can really help us on the defensive end of the floor and on the glass. We didn’t get that done with him or Justin and we need that moving forward. I think Adel will loosen up from the perimeter if he gets some easy stuff in his game."

Enormous respect must be given to the Breakers for what they are dealing with this season. They have been away from home for more than two months with no end in sight to that. 

Coach Dan Shamir acknowledges that, but isn’t making any excuses at the same time.

"I would like to share my thoughts and speak openly, but I don’t want to sound like I'm making an excuse or anything like that but I think it's tough. I see it in our guys and I think it's tough for them to play," Shamir said.

"We are just in our hotel room all the time but it's not an excuse. I miss my family too but it's probably harder to play basketball than to coach. At least from what I see they don’t really have a moment of life, they are either with their teammates or alone in their hotel room. 

"It's not easy, however, nobody is going to feel sorry for us and I think we can still play. Even if it gets tough and it's a bit of a challenge, if you think of it we can still play much better basketball. If we play much better basketball then good things will happen."

New Zealand forward Finn Delany is confident things are soon going to click for the Breakers despite what they are dealing with away from the court.

"I think we were a bit better with our rhythm in that last game and we had more of control of the game until the end. Obviously we are struggling offensive and we have a lot of things to work on for sure," Delany said. 

"Of course it's fixable. We know with the players we have what we are capable of, and we have a lot of belief in ourselves. We have that belief, everyone has that and it's not going to be easy and we have a lot of work to do, but it's more than fixable."