United swoop as Breakers can't maintain the rage

The frustration and heartbreak of #NBL21 for the New Zealand Breakers continued in Bendigo on Thursday with them unable to maintain a tremendous first half with Melbourne United doing enough to record the 82-79 win.

It was a tremendous opening half showing from the Breakers who are getting close to having been based in Australia for five months and remain short on manpower with Rob Loe back home, Corey Webster injured and new signings Levi Randolph and William McDowell-White still in quarantine.

Their second half of games in recent times has highlighted the fatigue they are now feeling both mentally and physically, and that did turn out the case again at Bendigo Basketball Stadium against Melbourne.

But before that came a dominant opening half.

New Zealand closed the second half with an 18-5 run to lead 54-38 on the back of 21 rebounds to 14, shooting 54 per cent from the field and 6/10 from deep with Finn Delany, Colton Iverson, Rasmus Bach and Jeremy Kendle all scoring at least eight points.

But the Breakers just couldn’t keep it going. They would shoot 9/26 at 35 per cent from the floor in the second half and 4/14 from deep while losing Iverson when he fouled out early in the fourth while both he and captain Tom Abercrombie received technicals.

Melbourne's defence was a factor in New Zealand's tough second half but United's offence didn’t quite flow again with just the 38 points in the opening half, and 44 in the second.

It was still an important win for United who have strung two wins together after a four-game losing streak, and this saw them come from 18 points down for the first ever time to win.

Mitch McCarron was perhaps their lone full game contributor to finish with 16 points, seven rebounds and seven assists while Shea Ili came up huge for 16 points and three assists.

Chris Goulding was scoreless in the first half but came up big late and had 13 points with Jock Landale finishing with 12 points, five rebounds, four blocks, two assists and two steals.

United coach Dean Vickerman knew his team had to make some adjustments at half-time, and was happy with how his team pulled it off.

"They were just getting in the paint too easy and that created all kinds of situations for us, and left some hot shooters on the three-point line with people overhelping, and Iverson was getting open at the rim by our bigs stepping up and helping," Vickerman said.

"It was more about how do we control their penetration and we did a much better job of that in the second half. After that we were far more disruptive up the floor in making different people have to start their offence, and taking them out of rhythm a little bit that way.

"It was a great response and we had some great contributions. (Yudai) Baba was a real energy for us off the bench and knew were going to miss Sam McDaniel. We needed some other people to step up and Shea Ili and Baba were the two guys that really took a load of those minutes and were impressive."

Finn Delany was the game's top-scorer delivering 17 points, five rebounds and four assists for the Breakers with Jeremy Kendle adding 13 points, Rasmus Bach 12, Iverson 11 and Jarrad Weeks 10.

Breakers coach Dan Shamir wasn’t so much questioning whether Iverson deserved his fouls or not, but was matter of fact in pointing out what a difference his absence makes.

"The guys are fighting. It's tough and we are battling through everything, and I don’t want to be a bad loser and complain but if you look at the stat sheet and every game is different, but it's so important for us to play how we play not to play a perfect game," Shamir said.

"But we built a lead and then Colton Iverson in 20 minutes was up +22 in the plus-minus. He managed to play 18 minutes in the first half and we were up 18 with him on the floor, and then we lose him. 

"We keep on fighting and are doing whatever we can, all of us players, staff, ownership, and we're about to have three more bodies. But right now every guy is important and Colton Iverson has fouled out the last three games in-a-row. 

"He only fouled out twice last season and the year before that in Spain, he only fouled out twice. So that really hurt us and whatever it is, without him and missing the pieces, it was tough."

The Breakers started with a triple to Rasmus Bach and then a couple of Colton Iverson buckets at the rim to lead 5-1. 

That soon became 14-5 including five more points for Bach. He would hit three triples in the first term but Melbourne responded at one stage going on a 9-1 run and by quarter-time it was locked at 26-all.

The Breakers took back over early in the second term and then they broke the game wide open heading into half time. 

The Breakers ended the half on an 18-5 run and that included three balls to Finn Delany and Jeremy Kendle while Iverson, Tai Webster got involved too and Melbourne looked a shell of the team seen as championship favourites.

It was New Zealand's game to lose at half-time and even more so early in the second half when they scored six straight points to lead by a game-high 18.

Melbourne had to respond and they did. They turned up their defensive pressure and would end up forcing New Zealand into 14 turnovers after just two in the first half.

United might have still never really found much flow offensively, but they held the Breakers scoreless for six minutes to close the third quarter to score 15 straight points. Despite that, New Zealand still led 65-59 after three following a Jarrad Weeks three ball.

Kendle hit a couple of big shots to start the fourth and put the Breakers back up nine with nine minutes remaining. But they wouldn’t score for another seven minutes and Melbourne turned that deficit into a six-point lead when Goulding drained a three with 2:40 left on the clock.

It was point guards Shea Ili and Yudai Baba that sealed the eventual three-point win with strong finishes taking the ball to the rack.

Both teams have a second game over the weekend with the Breakers playing the Bullets in Brisbane on Saturday while that night, United face South East Melbourne Phoenix in the Throwdown at John Cain Arena.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 11

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 79 (Delany 17, Kendle 13, Bach 12)

MELBOURNE UNITED 82 (Ili 16, McCarron 16, Goulding 13) 

BOX SCORE