I believe Max darling & Mojave King are fit and ready to play tonight.
It will be interesting how Coach Kop integrates them back into his rotations along with Tacko.
With Bolden out Kop had been playing Gillespie & Menenga together but I doubt he'll have as mush trust in Tacko coming off that injury to throw him out there for big minutes.
Expecting to see a lot more of Dane Pineau in this one.

This should be a good one. Hawks by 10 because the breakers have too much disruption and moving pieces going into this one and Harvey seems to reserve his best for the Breakers.

He sure does EssenX, remember a couple years back when he hit a game winner from just inside half court against NZ to deliver that awful Hawks team one of just 3 wins for the season

Nice to have the basketball back. PJC rested and ready to go, who knows who wins this, the winner will certainly be championship favourites. Should be a cracker, imo nz by a whisker.

I think menninga is injured and if so with bolden out, Karim out and tacko on limited minutes the breakers will have barely any size and get hammered I suspect

If Mennenga and Bolden are both out, I'm changing to hawks by a few.

Menenga was out of the Tall Blacks game due to a knock he sustained against cairns but the word was he would be good to go against Illawara unless something has changed?
Bolden is still out with his calf injury.
I heard Lopez was rested in one of Mexico's games as injury precaution but no update that he would not be available in this game.

I like the Breakers how the Breakers are rolling, especially PJC.

But I'll be tuning in largely to see how Tacko fares. His lack of foot speed may make it difficult for him to find a good fit in our league. We'll see, I hope he does well.

Lopez was supposedly out too (travel), but I saw on the Breakers socials he was travelling with the team.

Curious to see how Darling and King bounce back.

Mennenga and Gillespie could easily match Froling and Olbrich. But without Mennenga I'm unsure.

Feel bad for Kop and the coaches having set up a winning style of play and then needing to switch it up to accommodate Tacko. However, given how long Tacko has been hanging around they must have worked out by now how they will play with him.

For what it's worth, my wife seemed curious about the NBL for the first time ever when she saw the clips of iShowSpeed and Tacko on socials. Tacko could be great for the NBL and the Breakers, provided he can play 20mpg, competitively and consistently.

Just saw the iShowSpeed clip pop up. Don't know who the dude is and seems like someone I’d be happy to never see again.

Ben, for your own good I encourage you to not look too deep into his career lol

His Wikipedia page is quite the read

Don't know if Tacko will be either dominant or get shown up in NBL. Froling is a good matchup for him because he can just back off and pack the paint. That being said, Harvey has a great little mid range game with his runner so could have a big game. Days might get some minutes against Tacko, gives up a lot of height but might be strong enough down low to keep him out of the paint a bit. But has been probably disappointing overall, seem to hear more about him talking trash to Harrell and Oliver the last few games than actually producing anything on court.

word14 - tempting after those words, but think I'll heed your words and stay away from his wikipedia for now to save myself the mental anguish :)

Ben, here's a short sample

'On August 16, during a livestream, Watkins (IShowSpeed) jumped up from his seat due to being jumpscared while playing Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach and accidentally flashed his penis to a live viewership of 25,000 people.He subsequently ended and deleted the livestream.'

Need I say more...

NZ getting hammered, poor start though I thought they got the far better of the calls.

Lol word14. Wow, haha.

Super super early, but going to say it - Tacko's not a fit for the Breakers nor this league.

Slow foot speed hinders how active he can be on both ends of the court. Has blocked some shots, which I feel is kind of expected. But needs to be stuck near the bucket.

The noticeable part is on offence where he is only useful around the ring, and even then needs to be spoon fed. Can’t come out and set screens and then be involved in offence again.

Not personally hating on the dude, but I feel confident saying Matt Walsh fucked up on this one and the Breakers’ fortunes are going to suffer. His presence seems kind of an unnecessary deadweight.

Breakers trying to win it from the three, hawks just rolling to the basket. Breakers D woeful

Early days but as others have said replacing Gillespie with Falls was a bad choice

Breakers looked best when Pineau was at the five, he's not a super talent but works hard. Mccaron has passed it, strange recruit. Hawks got this and rolling at both ends. Tacko might improve but at present not looking great.

Breakers just not the same without pre FIBA Gillespie. Not sure whether coach Kop has the pieces he needs now. Might be an advantage from here for teams with games to come against the Breakers.

Disgusting call on tacko, Froling falls to the floor and foul goes on Tacko

Davidson been fantastic for breakers, added some defensive starch. Plus six in eight minutes. NZ nice fight back but still to far down

Bairstow minus 40, breakers got some work ahead. Hawks just so good everywhere, inside, outside and as coach says, you don't play D you are sitting next to me. Olbrich is going to be fantastic player.

Hard to take much from that performance from breakers but hawks very good. Love the role players hickey, Lee and buluk. I've always liked Kell and he took some heat when at SEM but he's delivering a bunch of stats for hawks.

Breakers got to get their full squad back and when tacko on court still run plays rather than obsess with getting the ball to him low. Still potential for them to challenge but can't see them holding their place. And unsure I can survive two seasons of this marketing experiment either

Hawks are a good side suspect they will go quite far this year!

Frustrated with Breakers management again, we didn't need to increase ticket sales with Tacko Fall when we were getting solid wins and selling tickets by winning. Not confident he's the player we need!

Hate to think how much we paid for him too!

Wow, the Hawks were incredible from start to finish.

I wouldn't write off the Breakers or Tacko yet. This was always going to be a difficult game with players coming in and out. It’s easy to point out Tacko’s weaknesses but their defensive transition was awful when he wasn’t on the floor and they must have set a record for air balls from 3. I’ll give them another 2-3 games to settle.

"Breakers just not the same without pre FIBA Gillespie."

Which pre-FIBA Breakers? The team who thrashed Melbourne and Adelaide, or the one who got thrashed by SEM and Tassie?

Watched the tatum press conference and was really impressed. He strikes me as being focused on the right things... get guys clear on what their role is then doing that job well. And it's showing in the performances of his full roster

AnonMightymouse, Gillespie the player after he figured out his role and the league following his lacklustre early season performances. Yes, the team have been up and down but 38 points is a smashing. CJ Bruton lost his job last year after the JJs did that to Adelaide. We have seen with the JJs how the loss of a ppkey piece can make such a huge difference and I fear that is the fate for the Breakers as well. Yes, Gillespie is not a superstar like McVeigh but he was a very important defensive piece for them none the less. And yes the JJs have been without MacDonald as well so that has also been a factor for them.

You're right there's a key missing piece, but it's not Gillespie. It's Bolden.

Bolden and Lopez being out made it very tough, particularly Lopez who who has been great.

No disrespect to the guys, but you not going to make playoffs easily relying on the forwards they had last night

They need to not try and force feed Tacko or worry about him too much on offence, as a starting point just tell him to block shots and rebound and go from there.

"Yes, the team have been up and down but 38 points is a smashing."

They were also smashed by SEM and in particular Tassie, who outscored them 60-23 in 26 minutes around 1/2 time. This is a trend for them this season (and across the league) and not really attributable to Gillespie given it happened with him in the line-up.

Mouse, not saying it is attributable to Gillespie but it doesn't help when you lose important pieces. As others have rightly said Bolden and Lopez being out hurt the Breakers too. Teams and players have bad games. Snakes and JJs both beat MU badly earlier in the season despite CJ43, Illy, Delly, Clarke etc. all playing. MU beat JJs badly in game 1 of last years GF series despite JJs having all their superstars including McVeigh. The point is whether the Breakers can now win the types of games they have already won this season. We get it that you don’t rate Gillespie and question whether the Breakers were as good as people thought. Fair enough. As long as the JJs can continue to beat them I don’t personally care because they have given us all manner of trouble in recent years, particularly PJC and Lamb last year.

"We get it that you don't rate Gillespie"

I certainly haven't said that.