Breakers look to avoid road block

Three days after allowing the Gold Coast Blaze sky-high shooting percentages, a show-down with the Australian National Basketball League's best offence could be coming at a bad time for the NZ Breakers.

The Breakers (4-4), fresh off a 110-96 home loss to the Blaze on Thursday night, jetted out to Perth yesterday to face the Wildcats tonight (8pm NZ time), hoping to get past their current three-game road block and record their first win away from the North Shore this season.

Perth (5-2), on the back of four straight wins during their current home-stand, come into the game on an eight-day break between games and have the league lead in points per game (90), field-goal percentage (49) and three-point percentage (43).

While it's usually the Breakers burying teams under a barrage a trois, the Blaze out-Breaker'd the Breakers on Thursday night, torching them for 74 percent (14/19) from three-point range and 65 percent (36/55) from the floor.

Head coach Andrej Lemanis was filing the Blaze's hot night as a freak occurence, brushing off any major concern about his team's perimeter defence.

"Up until last night we were second in the league in points allowed, second best in opponents' field-goal percentage and third best in opponents' three-point percentage," Lemanis said.

"Some of it early on was what we were doing, or not doing, on defence and some of it was just them making plays. When they shoot 14-of-19 on three-points shots, it's pretty tough to do anything and sometimes that happens," Lemanis said.

Among the Wildcats long-distance threats are Brad Robbins (72.7 percent), former league MVP Martin Cattalini (50.0), Drew Williamson (45.0), American Kevin Lisch (43.6) and former Breakers import Shawn Redhage (42.9), who averages 18.2 points per game, but also have the threat of 2.16m (7ft 2in) centre Luke Schenscher in the low-block.

"They're unbeaten at home. They've got a nice little fortress going at the moment and they're playing well at home.

"They lead the league in three-point percentage, so we have to defend that three-point line better. We need to neutralise their three-point looks but they've also got guys inside that can score as well. They've got big Luke Schenscher who can put it in down low.

"They come down and they shoot it quickly, much like Gold Coast did, so we have to make sure we play good transition defence.

"We watched one of their games and their first 15 possessions they only passed the ball twice each time. They shoot it quickly and put a lot of pressure on you at the other end. We have to be ready."

The Breakers-Wildcats rivalry has long been a heated one - from Dillon Boucher being ejected from a game for elbowing Rashad Tucker, and the resulting carpark confrontation in 2003, to last season's bad blood after Phill Jones' low-blow on Redhage and contentious last-second foul call and game-winning free-throws in the same game, to the Breakers' 24-point beatdown in the rematch at a hostile Challenge Stadium.

And while Lemanis was talking down any extra juice in the match-up, Wildcats coach Rob Beveridge was making these comments to The West Australian newspaper on Friday.

"CJ is just a class act, he's a great player. I think Brad Robbins, Damian Martin and Kevin Lisch will all have a crack at him."

Then stoked the fire further, questioning the court general's minor ankle injury that forced him to the bench for a stretch during Thursday's home game.

"He'll be fine, I think he was just playing to the cameras. It was a case of 'yeah, I tweaked my ankle but I'm a bit of a hero, I'll come back and play'. He'll be fine."

The Breakers and Wildcats will get further acquainted with an immediate return game at the North Shore Events Centre on Thursday, 7pm.

- © Fairfax NZ News