Breakers face tough road to finals with loss to Adelaide The New Zealand Breakers head into the sudden-death play-in qualifiers after suffering a crushing 76-70 loss to the Adelaide 36ers in their final regular season game in Sydney.
The Adelaide Thirty-Sixers continued their successful NBL season with a 76-70 win under coach Scott Ninnis, relegating the New Zealand Breakers to sixth place and away to the Sydney Kings in a play-in qualifier.
We played against each other.
The Breakers booked their place in the finals with a home win over the Brisbane Bullets on Friday, but will either finish fourth, fifth or sixth when they face the Sixers at a packed Adelaide Entertainment.
This became a problem.
center.
It was his last game of the NBL regular season, with the Illawarra and Sydney watching eagerly as Adelaide won, the Sixers winning despite the absence of import point guard Treykell.
Ta.
But not only did the Breakers have to deal with a brief upset at home on Friday night, they also lost experienced striker Finn Delaney to a hip injury during warm-ups.
To make matters worse, star guard Will McDowell-White suffered his second shoulder injury of the season.
Not only would that game end his afternoon, but it would also have ended his hopes of making the Finals on a Breakers team that was already without Anthony Lamb and Justin Jessup this season.
“A lot of the things we can control, we did really well,” Breakers coach Modi Maor said.
“We never gave up, we kept competing, we kept playing the right way, we kept staying in the game.
” “We made the dunk, but for some reason we didn’t make the free throws.
tumbled out of the hoop.
From doing that, just to “complete a nice comeback.
” “So we’re going to take a lot of the good things that this group has shown this season and bring them into the postseason.
” In Kel’s absence, DJ Vasilyevich has already had a great performance.
After committing to the club for the next three seasons, he was traded to the Sixers.
He recorded a double-double with his 25 points, 14 rebounds, and 4 assists, but he received a lot of support against his team, the 36ers, who finished the season with 12 wins and 16 losses.
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However, since Nins replaced C.J.
Bruton as coach, he has had an amazing 8 wins in 15 games.
“We don’t want to be here,” Ninis said.
“We wanted to play in the final and it gave us a glimmer of hope for a while there, but it wasn’t reality.
” “I have mixed feelings right now.
It’s a bit empty, but I’m very proud of this playing group, the way they came together when things were pretty bad for a while.
” The biggest difference was that Adelaide had 20 offensive rebounds and scored 18 second-chance points while hitting 25 free throws, while the Breakers made just 10.
For the Sixers, Isaac Humphries finished the season strong with 15 points and 6 rebounds, Nick Marshall had 8 points and 4 assists, Kirin Galloway had 8 points and 3 rebounds, and Sunday Deku had 7 points and 3 boards.
The Breakers once again showed signs of fatigue as they played their second game of the round in less than 48 hours against a fresh opponent waiting for their only game of the weekend.
But they continued to fight, and the Breakers’ defense was turned over when retired captain Tom Abercrombie missed a dunk that appeared to have a lot of contact, but was staggered.
