United Stay Tough for Critical Win Over Breakers

Melbourne United knows to stay in the playoff race they need to keep winning in NBL23 and they produced a strong showing at Christchurch Arena on Thursday night to beat the New Zealand Breakers 77-65.

It did appear the combination of being without leading scorer Barry Brown Jr and the travel from having played in Adelaide on Sunday, Perth on Tuesday and then getting to Christchurch caught up with the third placed Breakers.

However, United still had to play well to get the job done and had their own concerns with the absence of Isaac Humphries and David Barlow. But from the outset Melbourne were locked in defensively and came away with the 12-point win.

Melbourne turned a five-point lead at quarter-time into a 14-point lead midway through the second term on the back of threes from Xavier Rathan-Mayes and Brad Newley.

The Breakers weren’t ever really able to get close enough to threaten from there shooting just 33 per cent as a team including going 8/27 from beyond the arc along with coughing up 14 turnovers.

Melbourne scored 18 points off those and on the back of going 25/28 at the foul line scored the crucial win to improve to 12-12 on the season to remain in the race for the top six. New Zealand stays third at 13-8.

Rathan-Mayes rediscovered some of his better form to lead Melbourne with 20 points, six rebounds and three assists including shooting 3/6 from deep. Newley was also impressive with 14 points.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Brad Newley hits the party trick finish at the rim ?<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/UnE3XOTK2y">pic.twitter.com/UnE3XOTK2y</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1613445588535869442?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Captain Chris Goulding scored another 14 points with Rayjon Tucker adding seven points and six rebounds, and Marcus Lee six points, nine rebounds and five assists.

Melbourne coach Dean Vickerman was delighted with the all-round performance for another road win.

"We've been on a pretty good run on the road and we knew the Tasmania one was really tough, and coming into something similar here with a team that's been playing great defence all year, and playing with a physicality," Vickerman said.

"But I thought we really stood up to it and their defence in the second half went up another level, and we were able to take a couple of charges through that and deal with their physicality. 

"Going against their pressure, we found a way to get to the foul line and get some cheap ones, but their defence forces you to play in a lot of high pick-and-rolls, space the floor and we saw some guys be able to get downhill. 

"X is a guy in those moments who can attack some of the switches and I thought he made good decisions for us tonight."

It was a rough offensive night for New Zealand with Jarrell Brantley top-scoring with 17 points, five rebounds and two steals.

Izayah Le'afa added 13 points, Cam Gliddon eight points and four rebounds, Dererk Pardon seven points and six boards, and Will McDowell-White seven points, eight rebounds and six assists.

Breakers coach Mody Maor took on a lot of the responsibility himself for the result.

"The team did not disappoint me at all, I'm disappointed in our performance," Maor said. 

"We didn’t play up to par and when your team doesn’t perform as a whole, it's their coach's responsibility. This one's 100 per cent on me. 

"Playing three games in five days is a real challenge and I think for big stretches in the game you saw that our guys really tried, and competed. We didn’t have all the solutions and that's on me."

Melbourne came out with a hot start with three balls from Mason Peatling and Rayjon Tucker. It took almost three minutes for New Zealand to score and eventually Jarrell Brantley connected from downtown.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Lee with the hustle to keep it in ?? Ili with the ???????? of bounces to nail the triple!<br><br>Watch <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a> live on ESPN via Kayo Sports + Foxtel ? <a href="https://t.co/vJ8LXMpJip">pic.twitter.com/vJ8LXMpJip</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1613448324530712577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

United were feeling good, though, and were soon leading 12-5 after another 6-2 run and by quarter-time, they led 18-13 on the back of seven trips to the foul line to zero from the Breakers. New Zealand also shot just 6/19 from the floor and 1/7 from downtown opposed to Melbourne 5/13 and 2/6.

Melbourne further rammed home their good start to open the second quarter and it was Xavier Rathan-Mayes sparking a 7-0 run to push the lead out to 13.

Rayan Rupert gave New Zealand a brief reprieve by hitting a three, but Rathan-Mayes and Brad Newley responded in kind for Melbourne and that lead was out to 14.

A spectacular finish for a three-point play just before half-time from Rathan-Mayes gave him 13 points and gave United a commanding 43-30 lead going into the main break.

It was Izayah Le'afa almost single-handedly keeping the Breakers in touch in the third quarter hitting three triples on his way to 11 points. But each time New Zealand threatened a comeback, Melbourne had the answers to still lead a defensive grind 56-47 at three quarter-time.

Melbourne came out and hit the first five points of the fourth quarter including a three to Shea Ili that might have been lucky to count with the time appearing to expire. That helped United go back up 14 before the Breakers got back within six with the next six points themselves.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">No shoe? No worries.<br><br>Rayjon Tucker is still dropping serious dimes ? <a href="https://t.co/a8MagGlZF0">pic.twitter.com/a8MagGlZF0</a></p>&mdash; NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1613450718417162240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 12, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

But New Zealand just couldn’t string points together and Melbourne did enough down the stretch to maintain the edge and go on to win by 12.

Both teams play again in Round 15 with the Breakers returning home to Spark Arena to host the Cairns Taipans on Sunday. Before that, Melbourne plays the Bullets in Brisbane on Saturday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 15

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 65 (Brantley 17, Le'afa 13, Gliddon 8)

MELBOURNE UNITED 77 (Rathan-Mayes 20, Newley 14, Goulding 14) 

BOX SCORE