NZ looking pretty good early, up 26-20 at the end of the first quarter.
Good game so far, couple of blocks, few 3's and the refs not over using their whistles

Kyrin Galloway playing well defensively for NZ.

41 - 26 to NZ with 4:22 to go in the half.
Hawks outside of Reath have had nothing defensively to limit the Breakers.

52 - 33 to NZ at halftime, Gorj is going to lose his shit lol

I actually agreed with Homocide that XRM would be 6th Man OTY.

Last few games he has regressed though.

What kind of music are they playing during that timeout? Jesus.

I'm glad the Breakers won, they played very well. Having Peyton on court makes a huge difference to the team’s fortunes.

What the ????? !!!

Breakers are a completely different team with Siva, much better defensively. But the key difference was that they got production from their bench, namely Galloway in the first half and Bach in the second. Galloway's rim protection helped them build the lead and Bach’s 3 and D was invaluable to close the game out (the effort on the Harvey step back was impeccable).

As an aside, Dieng is starting to improve. He’s actually getting rebounds now and finishing inside. Hopefully he continues to improve and build his confidence.

As for the Hawks, they just look a bit lost and one dimensional.

Surprise, surprise a healthy Siva leading the Breakers to wins.

Well done Breakers but HUGE red flags for the previous title favorites. Hawks falling in a heap.

"Sydney is a better team that is in better form. They won't be troubled by NZ."
Remember, gamble responsibly, With that logic you're going to lose lots!

4 days ago, we may have read, "Illawarra is a better team that is in better form. They won't be troubled by NZ."
Just a few weeks ago, it could have been, Brisbane over Perth, or SEM or Illawarra, itself. JJ's over Brisbane and all the other "upsets" this season.

Certainly, there will be many more "upsets", this and every season.

Congrats to NZ on the win.

Why keep Naar if you're not going to play him.

Dare I ask the question. Is Goorj losing his edge?

A few observations that make zero sense to me.

Hawks,36ers and Kings are the probably the three teams that play with 2 legitimate bigs. Legitimate bigs meaning that their 4 man can easily slot in to and has often played the 5 role. For the 36ers and Kings both DJ and Martin are legitimate threats from deep and need to be defended out to the three point line. Reath also has that range but Froling is a reluctant shooter. Lately in many of the Hawks sets Froling is positioned in the long corner. His defender just clogs up the lane. Earlier in the season Froling was more involved in pick and roll action and slashing. His skill set/range is somewhat similar to Wetzel. You would rarely if ever see Wetzel parked in the corner.

WTF was that switching D they deployed last night and why did Goorj persist so long with it when the Breakers were just destroying it so easily. When he went on his rant about talking and switching in that timeout and said how when they did so they got stops I think he was deluded. Breakers may have missed a few open looks but they (apart from Cleveland) don't have the personnel to defend mismatches either way and it certainly didn't contribute to taking the Breakers out of their sets.

Worrying trends and the bench continues to become shallower with XRM really struggling of late.

NZ def have the team to get some wins on the board if they can steer clear of Covid and injuries.
Hopefully Abercrombie is back soon but Dieng has made some strides in the last couple of games but I was most impressed with Galloway's help defense but the Breakers team defense on the whole was pretty good.

Galloway's help D was great last night but his on ball or interior D has been very poor previously. Again the Hawks did not attempt to isolate him and exploit his slow lateral movement and lack of strength.

NZ did a good job of playing Delaney & Wetzell on the Frolings and Reath and when they had to switch off they quickly doubled them with some success.

Yes they did. They were unable to effectively pass out of the doubles from memory either.