BREAKERS 99 ADELAIDE 90
As the players gazed at the championship banner being raised at the North Shore Events Centre last night, a few of them might have been contemplating whether they can add another one in 12 months' time.
They are certainly building momentum and last night they took their record to five wins from six games to remain on top of the table and, in doing so, extended their winning run against Adelaide to eight games. But they won't be happy they let an Adelaide side who at one point trailed by 26 points back into the match.
It was a lot closer than it should have been as the Breakers went from shooting an impressive 60 per cent to themselves in the foot.
"As is the case sometimes when you get a big lead, you take the foot off a little bit,'' coach Andrej Lemanis said. "It takes a little while to kick-start it again.''
It had all started so well moments after their raised the championship banner they won last season and also retired Paul Henare's No 32 shirt. It was more an unfurling than a raising but it was significant nonetheless and the players seemed to feed off this as they played some of the best basketball seen in the club's history.
They opened out a commanding 30-18 lead after the first quarter and led 63-41 at halftime as Cedric Jackson gave Adelaide a clinic on how to run the point. He ran, he stole, he shot and he dished off. He even demonstrated his impressive leap with an alley-oop from a classy Mika Vukona lob-pass.
Henare, who was watching his first Breakers game as a fan, was a very important leader last season but Jackson has added something entirely different and he is also a scoring threat. The 25-year-old former NBA player wasn't supposed to be much of scorer but he's clearly finding the ANBL to his liking and finished with 16 points to go with his 11 assists, two steals and three turnovers.
Adelaide staged a second-half revival on the back of good defence and impressive outside shooting but they lost it in the first half. With their taller timber, they had hoped to play the post-up game but the home side prevented them from setting up their half-court offence by pressing them high and forced them to shoot from outside.
The 36ers finally found their range and cut the lead to eight points midway through the fourth quarter but the Breakers held them out. Gary Wilkinson settled the nerves with a big three-pointer to extend the lead back into double figures and he finished with a game-high 29 points - his highest score in a Breakers shirt. Tom Abercrombie, last season's finals MVP, also showed he is getting back into some form after a disappointing international series against Australia and finished with 17 points.
But for all of their threats at the scoring end - five players posted double figures but amazingly CJ Bruton went scoreless - their hustle on defence in the first half was just as impressive and championship teams do it at both ends of the court.
"For the most part it was a pretty good performance from us,'' Lemanis said. "[The first half] was probably as good as this team has played.''
The Breakers will host Wollongong next Friday, a team they beat on the opening night of the season, before a difficult trip to Cairns to take on the side they beat in last season's finals series.
They are building good momentum but, with the banner there to remind them, it's what they do at the end that counts.