What a night! In a thrilling match in front of a record 7,000 strong crowd at Vector Arena, the Breakers comprehensively trounced the Sydney Kings in a fashion that will send a clear message to fellow league leaders, the Perth Wildcats, ahead of their visit to New Zealand shores next Thursday.

The Breakers, with their home crowd in behind them, started strongly and took the lead in the first quarter which ended with a scoreline of 18 – 14.  Despite a strong lead early in the game the Breakers slipped into deficit against the Kings for a short period early in the second period. However they soon climbed back and extended their lead to eleven points at the half time break. The Breakers went from strength to strength in the third with a tremendous alley-oop from Tom Abercrombie getting the crowd pumping. They extended their lead again to thirteen and continued to pile the pressure on, as the Sydney side struggled for momentum against a side that was looking every bit the reigning champions. As the game wore on the Kings became desperate and their shooting accuracy was visibly declining even to the fans in the crowd who were left trying to guess the stats as the scoreboard went on the blink for a large part of the game. In the final minutes of the match Sydney’s star player, Julian Khazzouh, fouled out and he was farewelled loudly by the excited Vector crowd who rose to their feet to celebrate the stunning 29 point victory to the Breakers.

The key strength of this Breakers side is the depth within their squad, which was demonstrated last night with all of the team bar Dion Prewster (who played only 1:42min) appearing on the scoresheet, with double figures being made by Gary Wilkinson (18), Thomas Abercrombie (16) and Cedric Jackson (10). Khazzouh led the way with a match high score of 20 for the Kings, but it simply wasn’t enough to keep his team in the match.

The Breakers management will no doubt be pleased with the success of the Vector Arena experiment this year, with last night’s match a fantastic spectacle that smashed records for a basketball crowd in New Zealand. Hopefully the tremendous support that the public have treated the team to over the past few seasons continues for many years yet.

New Zealand Breakers 93 (Wilkinson 18, Abercrombie 16, Jackson 10)
Sydney Kings 64 (Khazzouh 20, Bose 13)