Went to the game in New Plymouth the other night. (got free tickets)

Was going to go again tonight, until I saw the ticket prices for a student were $25, which I thought was a bit steep. (Can understand its a CBA team and were flying them over here, but still)

Breakers Management did say that this season ticket prices are going up as they have been too cheap in the past. That was more in regards to regular season fixtures but may also explain the pre-season prices.

4th quarter 67-58 to the Breakers.

Greene with 26 points (11/20 & 4/9 from deep) and Corletto with 12 and Jeremiah Truman chipping in with 9 points (4/5 shooting) and 2 offensive rebounds and a block in under 12minutes.
Corey Webster has gone 2/10 and Abercrombie 1/6 but 2 blocks an assist and a steal

All tied up. 67-67.

Greene with 30.

Looks like NZ won 82-81 after Dongguan had tied it up late with Donte Greene getting hot again.

Corletto had 17p on 4/6 3p, Johnson 13p, 7a and 3s, Pledger 10p, 15r and 3b, Trueman 9p in 13mins and Te Rangi 8p on 4/4 in 17mins.

Greene racked up 37p on 14/26 and 5r while veteran big man Kai Zhang had 18p, 8r and 3a.

looking forward to the game on thursday in auckland if only to see how ridiculous Donte Greene is.

Has the game finished?

*checks twitter for Breakers players complaining about the officiating*

I notice Jarrod Kenny got quite a bit of burn in the fourth quarter for the Breakers, which is a bit odd with Johnson, Corletto and Webster in the line-up. Maybe Vickerman had had enough of Webster's 2/12 night?!

Noticed Webster raising Goorjian's disapproval of new NBL officiating. Pledger mentioned it too.

Would it kill these guys to form a single front with the NBL and forward their united cause? If you have objections to the decisions on refereeing, then raise them through Blackwell with the wider group of NBL owners. I was under the impression that Blackwell or Clarke had strong representation in the NBL core anyway.

Here's a Nick Marvin quote:

The most heartening part of this week was to experience first-hand everyone - players, coaches, referees, administrators and the fans – not only getting together but getting behind our common goals.

Has it been NBL refs calling these games, or a mixture of NBL and local refs? If it's the latter then Goorjian's thoughts are somewhat a stab in the dark.

Would it kill these guys to form a single front with the NBL and forward their united cause?

Just quietly Wookiee, the Breakers have only had 40 fouls in total called on them the past two games.

^ Yes, been reduced as a team, although The Usual Suspect (Vukona) still fouled out in the first game in 16min and finished on 4 fouls in 20min in the second.

In fairness to him, he's been trying to adapt to the new rulings called by lower end refs while trying to guard a pretty handy player in Greene! His free throws dropped from 14 in G1 to 4 in G2 so they must be making some adjustments.

nah Vukona obviously sux

I don't consider the way the Breakers or Wildcats played in previous seasons to be "dirty." They were clinical and physical, and they pushed the reffing interpretations to their advantage, and good on them for doing so. The results spoke for themselves.

But now that the interpretations have changed and the league has been clear as day as to how they are changing, them constantly complaining about it is very poor form.

Agreed.

Mystro, you turncoat! D:

Stand by your man!

This was a recent comment from Mika (taken after game 2 I believe),


"I thought I'd be able to adjust to it easily, because that's how they play international basketball.

"But I am struggling to adjust, while everyone else seems to be able to, so it's not the officiating's fault."

@Paul: yup, the fouls have been kept down, but they're still whinging about the calls being made so obviously they still have some work to do to understand the new direction...

If they're not fouling out, they might be picking up 2 or 3 early fouls and sitting out most of the game, who knows, otherwise, I can't see why the whinging...

I dont think there's a lack of understanding, seven of their 10 have played internationally and understand all about keeping the hands out of the cookie jar.

I just think theyre finding it frustrating given their defensive rules and approach are so ingrained and have been so successful (and also by the non-fouls being called by lower refs who dont yet understand what theyre meant to let go).

As The Situation said though, everyone knows what the change is, and they know the NBL is working to find a better balance than there was early in the pre-season, so just shut up and get busy changing your defences!

Mystro, that comment by Mika is exactly what they should be saying if frustrated.

Vickerman has said that the Coaches are calling their scrimmages really tight in a bid to help them adjust but he said the biggest changes he'll be making is in their offense.
With the new interpretations expect Johnson, Abercrombie, Vukona, Lazare & Pledger to all attack the rim a lot this season in a bid to draw fouls and win freethrows.

Breakers win G3 86-80 to take a clean sweep and, for their sake, hopefully run into a bit of form (the Summers situation is a win for them with the Hawks first up).

They actually led by 15 with about 3mins to go before Dongguan made a run to close within four late, but Pledger made a couple of free throws and Vukona had a block to seal the deal.

NZ shared the minutes pretty evenly with 12 players hitting the court - Vukona led the way with 12p and 5r while Abercrombie, Bruton, Corletto, Johnson and Lazare all had 10 or 11p.

For Dongguan, Donte Greene led the way with 20p on 6/13, 12r and 3b while Quan Gu had 17p on 5/7.

Crowd was over 7000 for a pre-season game. The Breakers are certainly on a roll.

Huge amount of chinese turned out at Vector to boost the crowd numbers.
The crowd got behind the Leopards in the last quarter and Vickerman rested a few guys and the Chinese started bomning away from behind the arc and got close.
Donte Greene came close to being on a Tom Aberctombie poster but didnt play as many minutes as he became frustrated with how the game was being called.

Corletto in an interview after the game said the players have had a meeting with the powers to be in the last couple of days and agreed on a middle ground in regards to the reffing.
The Leopards players and Gorj looked just as frustrated as anyone on the court with some of the calls, and especially Donte Greene

How many NBL refs were calling the games, do you know Mystro? I only recongnised Pickering for G2.

Game 3 was Brown, Pickering & another guy whom I have never seen before.