Breakers have edge inside with Pledge and Mitchell. They either don't get enough time or ball to dominate games though.
This could come down to the Withington/Carter, Kendle and Cadee/Dillard, will be interesting match ups but the Lisch/ Penney head to head will decide game.

We don't have anyone to stop Newley so if he is out we have some hope but both teams struggling and end up in half court sets where shooting % and big plays become the telling factors.

Sydney when pressed do not attack the basket so perhaps we can get after Cadee/Lisch full court without getting burnt. This might give us confidence to D up in the half court. This has been our biggest weakness all year.

More pressure on Sydney, but home fans will expect Breaker's to win at home.

Kings by 6.

I think Breakers this time with Dillard.

Tom, Pledger and Mitchell are the worst two of the Breakers main rotation when it comes to +- (and Loe the best) which is probably part of the reason Henare doesn't give them more minutes.

I expect Dillard to miss one or two shots and end up with 28 points.

Agree Angus, new imports tend to have a field day against the Kings... Breakers by 5 sadly...

^ me

Kevin Lisch just does not look the same : (

Can anyone believe he just hit the SIDE of the backboard on that jump shot?!?!? WOW.

Oh look, there's Whittington's first and probably only post touch of the night.

I more can't believe Lisch even shot that ball, let alone at the side of the backboard. 12 seconds left on the clock, dumb play and we were lucky NZ didn't score down the other end.

OK, so it's all 3 imports who are going to kill us tonight. Super.

Is this game being played in NZ? It's not the usual multi coloured scrappy dark and dingy floor as usual. The game looks good on TV

Moller with a pretty instant impact on that drive.

@AKA that's because this one is at Vector Arena rather than NSEC

Why is Hill guarding super fast, no jumper Akil Mitchell tight behind the arc....

Good to see Gaze playing deeper with the bench... Kings playing with more energy!

Ended that quarter how we've ended most quarters the past month or so.

That should be an unsportsmanlike on Dillard.

Thanks @Luuuc. They should play here more often! It makes for much better viewing on TV.

Vector is a much larger venue than North Shore so I would imagine it costs more to play there.

Haha .. what a play by cherry picker Dillard :p

I think Dillard is trying a bit hard on that behind the back pass... how many is that this game, 5?

Also not sure why Jackson got a T there, Mitchell steps over the line, then gets in Jackson's face?

I hope Vector doesn't have the clunky cringe rims like NSEC.

Out of interest: what's the capacity of the two stadia and which cities are they in?

Let's get it to Tommy for a contested 19 footer.

This season has been crazy. At one stage the Kings looked like hot favourites to win the title, now they are in danger of missing the playoffs. Shows how much it hurts clubs when top Australian players get long term injuries (Damo, Andersen and now Newley). I'm cheering for the Breakers in this one, which is something I rarely do!!!

kings couldn't hit water from a boat

Kings looked better than they actually were due to the fact we heavily played the same teams over and over at the start of the season IMO. Then other teams started an import arms race and we got left behind.

Kings are the Collingwood of the NBL

'Kings looked better than they actually were due to the fact we heavily played the same teams over and over at the start of the season IMO. Then other teams started an import arms race and we got left behind.'

I'm pretty sure Kings signed Powell THEN Blake first.

If anyone started an imports arms race it was the Kangz

Carter/Dillard look pretty solid, shame for the Breakers that they came in so late

Thing is, they were both big names, but neither of them was/is on big $$$ either.

I like Maric as a player. I like Powell as a player. Either of them as a big man in a rotation with some athletes would be solid presences. The 2 of them as a rotation is a disaster. The Kings have no explosiveness. Time and again the other team switches/rotates/doubles off both of them. The Kings guards do a decent job of finding them naked but time and again they fumble, or are blocked (by guards FFS) or miss the chippy because they're fouled and then miss the free throws.
The Kings are cooked. The NBL is too fast for them

Yep the Kings were the team that started the imports arms race when they signed two NBA veterans during the season.

When the Kings signed Jackson after Blake they clearly showed they were not playing the import arms race... It was the Kings record that started the arms race, not Powell or Blake.

Ironically, wasn't it around the time they signed Blake that things started turning around for them (in the negative direction)?

So does the Kings loss move them down to 5th or are they okay there?

Always happy when the mother country wins!

It was, from Blake's first game we looked shaky as hell. Although going back to our hot start, it was basically our 3 point shots that were winning us games... the same shots we've been bricking for what feels like 2 months.

Yes when Blake joined they started to fall apart. The basketball gods said enough of this ;)

The violet crumbles have lost 5 of their last 6 games now.

Violet Crumbles = Colliwobbles

Run DMC

Dillard
Mitchell
Carter

I loved NZ's imports efforts tonight.

Carter was a good find, great length, has some handles, shoots the 3 and can get to the hoop.

Mitchell rebounded well and played some D and got some dunks.

Dillard has nice handles, nice mid range j, can hit the 3 and makes his free throws. Great pick up and a real shame he wasn't with the team from the start of the season.

Hopefully NZ can build some momentum and grab some wins and get up out of the basement.

Sometimes I wonder if Lisch almost has too much of a free reign.

Sack Gaze

Only one King with a positive +/-

I only watched the first half & the Kings were looking oooo k (with the exception of some soft D from the usual suspects).

What happened?!?!?!?

Easy to say in hindsight, but they sacked Bryson prematurely. He could've grown, it was his first pro gig and the team was winning while he played like crap. Yeah sure, sack him if he's crap and the team starts losing. But they ran the risk of messing with chemistry by firing the kid.

Just watched the replay, turned out as I expected. What a clustertruck of compounding errors by Gazey. No post-game press conference uploaded yet but betcha he's going to complain about shots not falling in. Kings FG% was woeful because the 'open' looks Gazey thinks his offense managed to get were poor types of open looks. Henare did very well packing the paint and challenging the Kings to beat them from mid-range out.

To make matters worse, Gaze doesn't seem to understand rotation management. Went 12 deep but was all over the place with no strategy in mind to make sure that his big guns like Lisch, Whittington, Powell have enough stamina and foul counts to close out the game hard.

Defensively, the Kings are way to soft inside. Something has changed with their players since the slump started, its matador defense now, particularly Whittington. Too many prima donnas unwilling to put their bodies on the line to get charging fouls.

Absolutely terrible, highly likely to miss the finals.

One thing that stands out is how little he plays his bench and the large amount of minutes his starters play. No wonder they always look like they're buggered.

Wise words @Zodiac & @SteveK2 (like always : )).

& that's a really good point @Manu!
Look at the other teams with role playing or under performing imports...

Like Illawarra & Adelaide.
1st & 2nd.

Here's a real interview for JVG: 1. How much the Kings spend this year compared to other teams? 2. Who's decision is it to get Jackson, when we needed an import PG, and other teams were able to get Ware, Cotton, Carter and Dillian? Why did this happen despite fan and expert commentary saying the contrary? Who is the person responsible for player selection? Why are we signing tired washed out Ex-league players? Why are our imports performing so poorly compared to other teams? Why are individual players going backwards on this team eg Lisch MVP last year, 1/14 this year, Garlepp MVP last year, this year hardly contributing, HIll good player last year and permanently benched this year? Why are we using the Shuffle offence when it is not working and none of the other coaches are running it? Why does gaze keep saying we're getting open shots, but these are all low % shots from outside? Why is there no inside game with high % shots?

@Jumpshot... I'm looking for the on fire emojis to insert here, because that is ON THE MONEY!

Just watching the reply... HOW GOOD WAS THAT HUSTLE FROM FINN DELANY?!?!?!?!?

Love that guy!

Heh I think JVG will stop the interview after the second question. Ultimately, everything that went wrong can be attributed to him and his personal friendship with Gaze. For all his previous successes, this time he may have let it get in the way of his normally savvy decision-making.

What surprised me somewhat is Dean Vickerman. The supposed safety-net has failed somewhat.

Put in a good third guard and this team works.

Yes, the coaches have failed to find a way to generate pace once teams adjusted to their initial defence, but if you put Ramone Moore on the bench as their third import, as an eg, then I doubt they fall away like they have.

So whoever is making the recruiting decisions has to shoulder responsibility. Gaze was never going to be a master coach in his first season (or perhaps ever).

The Kings look too "static", too focused on set plays.

There appears to be "no freedom. no free motion type" offense where you play a read and react offense to what is there.

Players are playing "robotic" with no creativity to play what is in front you.

Kings last 6 games -

Sydney 168-422 FG, .398
Opponent 185-369 FG, .501

Lisch last 6 games 23/87 0.264
Lisch last 3 games 8/45 0.178

What's going on?

^Fair call.

If you're rating all the guards in the league, Cadee would be waaaaaay down the list. He is, however, the best in the league at milking fouls... that infuriates me every game that somehow he gets those calls & every other player in the league takes the bump.