LACEY LOWDOWN

The Sydney Kings continued their remarkable sequence of results on the road as they inflicted an 81-77 loss on the Sky Sport Breakers at Spark Arena on Sunday.

The Kings have now won 17 straight away games, the victory taking them to 7-2 and outright first in the ladder. It’s not all doom and gloom for the Sky Sport Breakers as they sit a lofty second on the NBL table with a 6-3 record entering into the two-week international break.

The Breakers looked dead and buried at half-time trailing 45-27 and with the margin still 18 points at the three-quarter mark a tame finish looked likely. However the Breakers poured in 31 fourth quarter points as Izayah Le’afa and Tom Abercrombie inspired a spirited comeback.

The Breakers reduced the deficit to two points in the dying seconds but with the clock their enemy the home team couldn’t get any closer.

It had been 33 months and 72 games since skipper Tom Abercrombie felt the warmth of home crowd support and the Breakers veteran received a terrific ovation as he entered the arena for his 372^nd appearance for the club. He demonstrated that he had lost none of his defensive ability or his hops – a trademark fourth quarter dunk complimenting two earlier triples.

Here are the latest club records and milestones:

Lost 81-77 v Sydney Kings at Spark Arena on Sunday

Will McDowell-White nabbed his second double-double of the season in accumulating 10 points and 12 rebounds.

His 10 points moved him past 400 points for the Breakers – the 35^th player to reach this milestone. Phill Jones was the first to reach the mark late in the inaugural 2003-04 season while Tai Webster, who was still at Forrest Hill Primary School when Jones made his 400th point, was the most recent in the 2020-21 season.

Tom Vodanovich played his 100^th NBL game rather fittingly against the team he won a championship with last season and suited up for on 67 occasions. He first played for the Breakers between 2018 and 2020 before shifting to Sydney for a productive two seasons.

Barry Brown Jr is proving to be a model of consistency. With 22 points against the Kings the Breakers leading scorer this season has now scored between 22 and 24 points in five of the six games he has played.

Izayah Le’afa moved past the century mark in points this season with his 15 points on 7 from 12 shooting.

Upcoming

The Breakers have another home game to look forward to on Sunday November 20 when they take on the Adelaide 36ers at Trusts Arena, 48 hours after a match up in Tasmania against the Jack Jumpers.

Those two games follow the FIBA window when both the Tall Blacks and Australian Boomers will play two World Cup Qualifying games.

Dan Fotu and Alex McNaught headed off with the Tall Blacks on Monday morning to contest the Tall Blacks away games against Jordan on November 13 and Lebanon three days earlier.

Mody Maor began his tenure as the 8^th Breakers Head Coach, following Jeff Green, Frank Arsego, Andrej Lemanis, Dean Vickerman, Paul Henare, Kevin Braswell and Dan Shamir, with a 101-97 overtime loss at Melbourne United on Sunday.

It’s the second occasion the Breakers have been taken to overtime on the opening game of the season. The last time was two seasons ago when Tai Webster scored 34 points in a 94-91 loss at the Adelaide 36ers.

Despite the loss there was a lot to like about the Breakers performance.

New imports Derek Pardon (23 points, 12 rebounds and 2 blocks), and Barry Brown Jr (23 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists) both impressed on debut.

Pardon’s double-double is the first on debut for the Breakers since Rick Rickert posted 19 points and 12 rebounds against Cairns Taipans on the opening game of the 2007-08 season.

Will McDowell-White threatened a triple double with 9 points, 13 rebounds and 7 assists – those 13 assists a new career high.

Rob Loe continued the good form he displayed with the Auckland Tuatara in the NZNBL recording 12 points and 4 rebounds before retiring to the bench with a, hopefully not serious, ankle injury.

The other player in double figures was Izayah Le’afa, the Wellingtonian guard scoring 13 points on his Breakers debut.

Loe’s 12 points took him to 800 points for the Breakers. In addition with 108 games under his belt he sits 14^th on the Breakers all-time appearance list. 

With 7 assists logged against Melbourne United McDowell-White needs just 3 more assists to tally 200 dimes for the club. After just 45 games he is already up to 13^th on the Breakers all-time assists list, averaging 4.4 assists per game. 

The next assignment for the Breakers is a home game against the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers at Vector Arena on Friday night – October 7^th, tip-off 7.30pm. Get along and support the team as they play the first home game since June 5, 2021.

If, as indicated on the Breakers social media posts, they field a full compliment of rostered players against Adelaide 36ers later today it will be the first time they have been able to do so in 18 games this season.

In fact it will be the first time a full contingent of players have hit the floor since May 1^st 2021 when the Breakers beat Perth Wildcats 86-84, in Tasmania – 29 games ago! 

Off the back of three consecutive double-doubles, while way with the Tall Blacks at the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, Rob Loe was given a start against the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers. Significantly his 12 points more than doubled his scoring output for the season – in his previous 8 games (albeit with limited playing time) he had scored 11 points.

Perhaps more significantly Tom Abercrombie made a welcome return to the playing roster against Brisbane Bullets. Abercrombie only had 3 rebounds and a point but he did get a valuable 12 minutes game time under his belt.

In the same game Rasmus Bach played his 50^th game for the club.

The Breakers leading scorers this season are:

Yanni Wetzell – 220 points @ 16.9ppg

Hugo Besson – 216 points @ 14.4ppg

Finn Delany 179 points @ 10.5ppg

Peyton Siva 151 points @12.6ppg

Finn Delany has moved up a place on a couple of the Breakers all-time records categories recently.

Delany is now up to 10^th spot on the Breakers scoring list moving past Gary Wilkinson’s 1,423 points. With 1,437 career points Delany will soon move to ninth, the place currently occupied by Ben Pepper (1,451 points).

Currently with 681 rebounds Delany is also closing in on 700 career rebounds. Only Vukona (2356), Abercrombie (1,638), Pledger (1,293), Boucher (939), Pepper (935) and Jackson (749) have bettered that mark for the club.

The official attendance for the Sky Sport Breakers opening home game against Sydney Kings at Spark Arena on Sunday was 7,497 – the 12^thhighest crowd all-time for the Breakers and the largest ever for an opening game of the season.

The crowd for the Illawarra Hawks clash on Thursday is forecast to be even bigger. If it passes the 8,000 mark, which is looking likely, it will be only the eighth occasion a Breakers home crowd has exceeded that number and just the third time during the regular season.

The largest crowd the Breakers have ever attracted was 9,238 for Game 3 of the 2012 Grand Final series against Perth Wildcats. The biggest regular season crowd was 9,157 on February 1^st 2013, when the Breakers won a 10^thstraight game defeating Perth 98-81 with Corey Webster scoring 14 points to back up Cedric Jackson’s 22 points.

Breakers largest regular season crowds:

9,157 v Perth Wildcats, 1.2.2013

8,500 v Adelaide 36’ers, 28.2.2013

7,979 v Sydney Kings, 27.1.2012

7,947 v Cairns Taipans, 21.3.2014

7,597 v Perth Wildcats, 13.12.2013

7,494 v Sydney Kings, 20.10.2019

Opening Games of the season.

Scottie Hopson’s 27 points in the opening game in Sydney ranks fourth equal with the most points scored by a Breaker in their debut game for the club.

Most points scored on debut for the Breakers:

34 Carlos Powell, September ‘06

31 Brian Wethers, September ‘06

29 Ben Melmeth, October ‘03

27 Shawn Redhage, September ‘04

27 Scottie Hopson, October ‘19

25 Marcus Timmins, December ‘05

23 Kirk Penney, October ‘07

Most points scored in opening two games for the Breakers:

56 Brian Wethers, September ‘06

54 Carlos Powel, September ‘06

46 Kirk Penney, October ‘07

45 Ben Melmeth, October ‘03

40 Scottie Hopson, October ‘19

Corey Websterplayed game number 200 for the Breakers in the home encounter with Sydney on Sunday.

He became just the sixth player to reach the double century mark for the club after Mika Vukona (354), Tom Abercrombie (304), Paul Henare (250), Alex Pledger (238) and Dillon Boucher (220).

Numbers don’t tell the full story of what Kirk Penney has contributed to the SKYCITY Breakers but they do help illustrate what a massive contribution he has made to the success of the club and the many memories he has provided.

Penney made his debut for the Breakers on October 4th, 2007 at NSEC scoring 23 points against West Sydney Razorbacks – Oscar Forman and Mika Vukona played for Breakers that day although Paul Henare missed the game, bringing to an end a run of 130 consecutive games.

Penney scored 23 points that day, the beginning of quite a sequence of scoring in his first season with the club. In 31 games he passed the twenty points mark in all but four games as the Breakers made the play-offs for the first time. He finished that season with 749 points at 24.2ppg.

The following season he soon waltzed past the 1,000 points mark for the club – tallied in just 41 games. Just 15 players have reached that milestone for the North Shore club and he passed that number in ten games fewer than the second quickest – Mike Chappel.

The Breakers went a game deeper into the play-offs that year but fell in the semi-final to a star studded Melbourne Tigers. Penney’s output was almost identical to season one amassing 747 points in exactly the same number of games.

Season 2009-2010 was the one that got away. The team won the last six games on the bounce but missed the play-offs by a whisker with a team that felt they could have gone all the way to a title. It was also the beginning of the 40-minute game era that naturally impacted on the number of points scored by teams and individuals. It didn’t affect Penney greatly as he still averaged 23 points an outing.

At the back end of that season he scored a career high 49 points against Adelaide which still stand as the second highest individual score by a Breakers player, just behind 50 points from Carlos Powell against Melbourne Tigers in 2006.

2010-2011 was a season to savour, a season when Penney helped bring the first of four NBL Championships to the club. Penney’s numbers were down slightly with 581 points at a still healthy 20 points an outing. However in the play-offs he produced a memorable performance to help take the Breakers to their first Grand Final.

You may remember that in game one of the semi-final series the Breakers suffered a serious bout of stage fright and were stuffed 101-78 by Perth Wildcats at NSEC. To make matters worse Mika Vukona hobbled out of the game with a serious leg injury.

Three days later, in Perth, Penney and the Breakers caused an upset by defeating the Wildcats 93-89. The performance was memorable on two counts. Firstly Vukona not only defied the medics and played but he also garnered a game high 10 rebounds. Secondly Penney reeled off a match- winning 38 points – a couple of his corner three jump shots still live in the memory.

The Breakers took care of business in game three back on the North Shore and went on to claim their first title with a two games to one victory against Cairns.

Following a five-year break Penney returned to the Breakers last season and although they fell one win short of another play-offs appearance he still led the team in scoring. Playing in all 28 games, he scored in double figures 25 times finishing with 486 points at 17.4ppg.

Having missed the last five games with a calf injury Penney’s place as the Breakers all-time leading points scorer has been overtaken by Tom Abercrombie – but only just.

Penney has scored 3,200 points at 20.3ppg with Abercrombie just four points ahead. (3,204 points at 11.7ppg).

Other Penney numbers at the Breakers:

Has made the most 3 point shots for the club (483)

Has scored 30 points or more in a single game on 30 occasions.

158 appearances

641 rebounds

369 assists

125 steals

It has been a while coming but Breakers centre Alex Pledger is beginning to show the dominant form he displayed three or four seasons ago.

In season 2012/13 Pledger was a colossus as he averaged 10.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.5 rebounds per game playing a large part in the Breakers completing their third straight NBL championship win.

His numbers were equally good (10.0ppg, 7.4rpg and 1.6 blocks per game) in early 2013/14 but unfortunately his season came to an abrupt end 13 games into that disappointing campaign as injury sidelined the 2.16m defensive anchor.

Pledger has spent the last two seasons carrying various niggling injuries and his numbers have suffered accordingly averaging 6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.3 blocks across 61 games.

The big man looked in great touch at the weekend, securing a brace of double doubles as the Breakers completed a tough weekend with a brace of W’s.

In Melbourne on Friday Pledger led all scorers with 20 points and snared 10 rebounds as United were beaten in overtime 98-92.

Less than 48 hours later he produced a balanced twelve rebounds and twelve points performance. He also came up with three blocks in addition to influencing the shots (or lack of them) taken by key Brisbane big men Bairstow and Kickert who were a combined 2 from 17.

Executing back to back double doubles for just the fourth time in his NBL career Pledger passed a couple of notable milestones over the weekend.

In Melbourne he took his total career rebound count to exactly 1,000 becoming just the third Breaker to record 1,000 rebounds for club after Vukona (2,054) and Abercrombie (1,061).

Then on Sunday at Vector Arena, with those three swats, he became the first Breaker to record 200 career blocked shots.

188 games into his Breakers career perhaps the best is yet to come from Alex Pledger.