Breakers Go 3 and 0 - Tigers 0 -3
The Breakers have recorded three succesive wins after beating Melbourne 84–79 in the NBL on Auckland's North Shore on Thursday night.
It wasn't the most compelling of performances, with a third quarter walkabout that threatened to produce a loss but with CJ Bruton landing 25 points, to pass 1000 points for the club, with Gary Wilkinson 14 and 12 each to Tom Abercrombie and Alex Pledger the Breakers, despite a 41 percent field goal average, were able to claim the win.
Melbourne with TJ Campbell scoring 18, Cameron Tragardh and Eric Devendorf 16 each and Luke Nevill 14 shot 50 percent but suffered their third loss from three games this season.
The Breakers went into the final quarter 64-68 down but Abercrombie's defensive rebounds, coupled with some outstanding defensive intent from Wilkinson and Dillon Boucher regained the impetus for the home side.
TJ Campbell started shooting hot from the outset and Melbourne stormed to a 19-13 lead but two superb blocks by Alex Pledger put paid to scoring chances and with Kevin Braswell and CJ Bruton firing well the score at quarter-time was 20-21 to the visitors.
Also helping the home team was some hesitancy by the Tigers which saw Dillon Boucher and Bruton complete steals as Melbourne dithered on their choice of options.
An accurate start to the second quarter from the Breakers put the pressure on the visitors and they struggled to regain the scoring rhythm of the first quarter.
For the home side Corey Webster landed a three-pointer to take the Breakers out to a 29-23 lead. Corletto responded in kind for Melbourne but then Gary Wilkinson stepped up to sink a mean dunk, drawing a foul in the process.
Eric Devendorf unleashed two big three-pointers to get Melbourne back in the hunt but the Breakers, with Pledger pulling off some more blocks, with one notable effort on Luke Nevill drawing its own reward as he then succeeded in drawing a foul from Nevill at the other end of the court to sink the resulting free throws.
Pledger became something of a foul magnet for Melbourne and with two more free throws and offensive rebounds he ended the first half with 11 points to be the Breakers' leading scorer.
Campbell got back in the act just before the break to pull the score back to 51-46 to the home team with 11 points to his credit.
A sloppy third quarter from the home team saw it score only 13 points in the quarter, nine of them successive three-pointers to Bruton, who was then subbed to spend most of the quarter on the bench. Melbourne got out to a 68-61 lead before Webster landed a three-pointer on the buzzer.
<b>Breakers 84</b>Bruton 25, Wilkinson 14, Pledger 12, Abercrombie 12
<b>Tigers 79</b>Campbell 18, Devendorf 16, Tragardh 16, Nevill 14.
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