The Breakers Have Bowed Out Of NBL24, But It Wasn't Without A Fight
In a topsy-turvy, up-and-down season... the Breakers finished about where they should have: right in the middle. They made the play-ins but not the playoffs, winning one knockout game but losing the other. Expectations were obviously high coming off a finals appearance, expectations which this roster wasn’t quite built to match (injuries spoiling any lingering chance of that right up until the very end). But you know what? They showed plenty of heart through until the very end and that’s more than most teams could have mustered under those circumstances.
After how brilliant they’d been in NBL23, it was super disheartening to see the franchise revert back into habits that hadn’t worked for them in the past. The constant flirting with the NBA. Ignoring the off-court red flags in Anthony Lamb’s past. And most consequential in a basketball sense, they once again put together a roster that was based on talent instead of fit.
Hence Parker Jackson-Cartright and Will McDowell-White had to share duties as double-barrelled ball-handlers, while Zylan Chetham and Finn Delany had the same issue at power forward. And the imports are usually better so what that did was it marginalised WMD and Delany, who had down years compared to the All-NBL levels they’d reached in the past. One of the secrets to NZB’s success last term was having McDowell-White giving them elite point guard production as a local, freeing up an extra import spot. WMW was still pretty great when he was available, but he was playing six minutes less per game. Delany, on the other hand, never even looked comfortable. Never looked like there was a clearly defined role for him – at least not one that could summon the best of Finn Diesel. Compared to where he was in his peak season of 2020-21, it’s hard not to see this as a waste even beyond his injury troubles.
Finn Delany in NBL21
36 GP | 33 MIN | 16.2 PTS | 6.8 REB | 2.2 AST | 46.4 FG% | 34.3 3P%
Finn Delany in NBL22
26 GP | 32 MIN | 10.0 PTS | 5.6 REB | 2.1 AST | 39.4 FG% | 29.7 3P%
Finn Delany in NBL24
19 GP | 23 MIN | 8.8 PTS | 3.5 REB | 0.9 AST | 40.4 FG% | 34.4 3P%
Nor did the gamble of reshaping their frontcourt pay off, even though Mangok Mathiang did improve heaps over the back half of the campaign (and was one of only four players who were available for all 30 games). Averages of 6.7 points and 6.1 rebounds were okay and he had the lowest Defensive Rating on the team (lowest = good in a defensive sense). Not exactly Defensive Player of the Year levels though, which is what we were promised. His backup Dane Pineau didn’t play much. Neither did fellow Aussie Cam Gliddon, despite his sharpshooting triples falling at 45% (he had the same Net Rating as Mantas Rubstavicius, who got most of those opportunities instead).
They also signed a bunch of kiwi lads to fill out the roster, making a big fuss about how they were boosting those guys up... and then hardly ever played them. Dan Fotu got 63 total minutes. Alex McNaught got just 3. Max Darling and Dom Kelman-Poto one mere minute apiece. And poor old Carlin Davison never got on the court at all. With Tom Abercrombie’s role also dipping as he neared retirement, that left this team with the smallest Aotearoa contribution we’ve ever seen. This after all the talk about restoring their kiwi roots during the finals run a year ago.
That’s a bummer from New Zealand’s only fully professional basketball team. It’s also a bummer because that left them short on depth, and this is why the idea that they were simply cursed by injuries doesn’t entirely stack up. Injuries are always bad luck... but there are things you can do to improve your odds. Having a deeper roster so that the same guys aren’t going hundies every single game for quite so long, also giving fellas more time to recover properly when they do get injured rather than rushing them back in before they’ve got their conditioning, that stuff helps. Also beneficial is not flying to America early in the season for a pair of meaningless exhibition games. And while this one was admittedly less avoidable... got to think Finn Delany’s fitness issues were affected by having a FIBA World Cup tour in the middle of his preseason.
Mody Maor had this to say after their play-in elimination: “In the middle of the season we had this slogan, we’re either the best team that never was or the best team that ever was, and if we’d have made the semi-finals that means we’d have been the best team that ever was, because of all the things we overcame in order to get there... I think this roster was incredible and we never had a chance to see it in full. This team played its full roster for eight minutes in this whole season and had a combined 82 games missed from our top eight players – that’s more than two-and-a-half players per game.”
The “best team that never was” idea is one that’s been echoed by a few of the NBL media folk. It doesn’t hold up considering how much of their inconsistency was of the franchise’s own making... but, regardless, only eight minutes of a full roster across 30 games is bonkers. That would have been tough for even the deepest of squads to overcome. And this was not that.
With all that in mind, this Breakers squad still managed to bow out with dignity despite their limitations. Much more dignity than the team that beat them in the finals last season managed. Sydney Kings rebuilt their entire starting five with a new head coach (who has since been sacked) and their brittleness, their sloppiness, their mental fragility stood out in clear contrast to a dogged Breakers side in fifth vs sixth play-in eliminator, which the Breakers won 83-76.
The Breakers trailed for most of the first half, battling just to stay within range. Those battles then paid off as they were able to keep the deficit within single-figures at half-time and then came surging back after a few adjustments and there ya go. Immediately after tying the game up they went and did some typical Breakers things by gift-wrapping that lead back through a bunch of fouls of the personal and also unsportsmanlike variety. Mantas Rubstavicius got himself ejected amidst. Thankfully, though, the Sydney Kings were a shambles in that second half.
The first field goal by a kiwi player in this game didn’t come until the fourth quarter, but Izayah Le’afa was able to double the dosage with a pair of crucial three-pointers amidst an 11-3 run to start the fourth which established the winning lead. Parker Jackson-Cartwright did the rest, scoring 34 points with 6 assists and 5 rebounds. He was immense. He also kinda lost his mind in the process, raging multiple times at commentator Derek Rucker (while he was commentating courtside)... seemingly because he was only ranked seventh on Rucker’s Top 15 players yarn on the NBL website. Insanely weird thing to care that deeply about. His post-game interview then bordered on obnoxious as he blurted out random mantras about ‘winning’. Hell of a performance though.
That earned them a second play-in against the Illawarra Hawks, who’d been defeated by Tasmania JackJumpers in the third vs fourth match. Winner of this would advance to face Melbourne United in the semi-finals... and again it wasn’t looking good for the Breaks as they trailed by double digits within the first quarter, a deficit that peaked at 15 points. It was the same starting five as in the previous game (Jackson-Cartwright/Le’afa/McDowell-White/Cheatham/Mathiang), however unlike Sydney this was a Hawks team in form. Weirdly, both of these two teams had spent time in last place this season. Both had also found the resilience to take them to this stage, one win away from the semis.
The Breakers didn’t lose that resilience despite facing elimination. A 13-2 run midway through the second frame helped them tie things up at the break. They couldn’t buy a rebound and they were turning the ball over with frivolous regularity... but at least they were forcing defensive turnovers too. And you know what else? With McDowell-White, who had rushed back early from a shoulder injury to partake in this postseason, missing almost all of the second half due to a rolled ankle, it was the kiwi trio who stepped up when needed. Delany hit the triple that tied the game at 40-all late first half. Le’afa’s scoring was a feature the whole way through. Plus, in his last ever game of professional basketball, Tom Abercrombie (who’d logged ten scoreless minutes against Sydney) popped up with some two-way influence reminiscent of the golden years.
The line-up they went with for much of the fourth quarter had PJC paired with Le’afa in the backcourt with Abercrombie, Cheatham, and Mathiang around them. That did quintet put way too much offensive emphasis on PJC in a very ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ fashion... but that line-up was also absolutely heroic on the defensive end. The Hawks couldn’t hit a three and they were matching the Breaks for turnovers.
With a little over seven minutes left, Abercrombie nailed a treble to give NZB their first lead of the night at 68-67. Both teams tumbled into the penalty zone early so free throws were a major factor down the stretch. The lead flipped back and forth. Le’afa was very unlucky to foul out with thirty seconds left after a whistle that could easily have gone the other way. Sadly, the Hawks kept making their FTs and the Breakers continued to lean too hard on their imports, with the last two offensive plays seeing Cheatham turn the ball over and PJC miss a wonky three on the buzzer. Hawks advanced with an 88-85 win.
As above, so below. The same thing that won the Breakers that first play-in helped lose them the second: an over-reliance on Parker-Jackson Cartright (and, to a lesser extent, Cheatham). The wee fella played 39 out of 40 minutes against Illawarra, scoring 19 points but only shooting 5/17. He had 9 assists but also 6 turnovers. It was very clear that the Hawks had a gameplan to make things tough for PJC and the Breakers weren’t quite prepared to let anyone else take over instead - hence their season ended with him falling out of bounds whilst tossing up an unlikely triple. He played well but it wasn’t enough – also notable to hear Coach Maor yelling at the team to “stop taking the first option, make them work!” during a second quarter timeout. That pretty much summed it up. It got predictable.
They shot the ball well but there wasn’t enough variety, they didn’t ask enough of the Hawks defence. Meanwhile they were out-rebounded by 11 boards and had 20 turnovers. At least the Hawks helped balance their own 18 turnovers with 20 offensive rebounds. In that light, Mathiang’s solid 11 points (4/4 FG) and 6 rebounds don’t seem so flash after all. The big man couldn’t stop the Hawks from rolling his side on the boards, nor from pocketing a 46-28 advantage for points in the paint.
Let us also not ignore that this is a team that has routinely bottled it in the second game of any week. Remarkably, they were 0-7 when they had fewer than four days off between games. This time at least the Wednesday to Monday turnaround meant they got those prerequisite four days... they were 14-9 with that minimum recovery time. Of course, if they hadn’t lost to an already-eliminated Adelaide team in the last game of the regular season (on a short turnaround, naturally) then they could have potentially finished in the top four and only needed to win one play-in, potentially even with home-court advantage. That loss was the real spoiler to their season.
Again, though, these are things we already knew about the Breakers. The roster was flawed, maybe not in terms of pure talent but definitely as far as chemistry and fit go. They’ve been one of the worst rebounding teams all season and have often been prone to turnover chaos, not to mention their propensity for sending opposition players to the free throw line. That tendency to lean too much on their imports (which they probably would have gotten away with had Anthony Lamb been available). Even their inability to win on short-turnarounds. All were characteristics of this team throughout the entire campaign.
Which is why that’s the wrong note to end this article on. The critiques were there throughout. What wasn’t always so obvious was the spirit and the scrappiness that they showed in both of these knockout games. The way that they fought back from deficits on both occasions, putting themselves in winnable fourth quarter positions. The way that they refused to quit or lie down or make excuses. That, to be honest, is nearly as much of a credit to Mody Maor’s coaching as the run to the finals was in NBL23. How many coaches could have kept this team together like he did? It won’t be recognised enough but this was an undercover magnificent season of coaching from that bloke. Hopefully he’s still around next season and hopefully he gets a little more support with the squad that’s assembled for him.
Not every season is going to have championship potential. With a little more luck they Breakers might have topped out in the semis, where Melbourne United and Perth Wildcats seem destined to stroll onwards into a thrilling grand final series. They didn’t get that luck but the Breakers still came within a missed three pointer of getting there. Frustrations, yes. Disappointments, sure. But pride too. And dignity. And heart. They went out valiantly, fighting until the last second, and for how this season has gone that’s the bit worth focussing on.
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