The NZ Breakers' quiet achiever made some serious noise at the NSEC last night as the Aussie NBL leaders eventually took care of business against the third-placed Townsville Crocodiles.

It was far from a complete performance from the Kiwi title hopefuls, but thanks to a strong all-round display from businesslike American centre Gary Wilkinson they were able to scrape out an 81-70 victory that maintains their pursuit of the minor premiership.

The win improves the Breakers to a league-best 17-6 and drops the Crocs to 13-10 as the visitors' top-two hopes suffered a serious blow. It was also the Kiwi club's 12th victory from 13 home games this season.

But it was a close-run thing with the Crocs closing to within just two points (68-70) with three minutes remaining, and forcing the home team to come up with some big plays in the closing minutes.

Wilkinson produced arguably the most important of them when his offensive rebound and putback took the Breakers out by 75-70 with 1:12 left - a play that knocked the stuffing out of the Queenslanders.

In front of their sixth sellout home crowd of the season, the Breakers started and finished well, but played a little too scrappily over the middle stages for anyone's liking.

Their offensive execution was a little off on the whole but crucially they racked up another win, and put the pressure back on those Perth Wildcats to do likewise over the weekend.

The home team shot a respectable 47 percent from the floor and won the rebound count (40-27) and points in the paint (44-28) for a solid night's work. Most crucially, they executed down the stretch when it really counted.

Wilkinson sat for longer than he usually does (playing just 24 minutes), but when he was on court he was mightily effective, finishing with 18 points (7/13 FG, 2/5 3PT) and 10 rebounds.

Fellow import Cedric Jackson was typically industrious and even knocked down a couple from distance as he finished with 15 points, four rebounds, seven assists and a pair of steals.

Tom Abercrombie didn't quite score at his normal clip (13 points on four-of-eight shooting) but he did everything else beautifully, chipping in with seven rebounds and four blocks in a busy display. Alex Pledger added 11 key points (5/7 FG)  in relief of Wilkinson, while Dillon
Boucher's relentless hustle and heady play was not done justice by a statline of zero points, five boards, three assists and a pair of steals.

The Crocs, playing their third game in eight days, stuck at it well and were led by Eddie Gill's 17 points and four assists, with Peter Crawford, Jacob Holmes and Elvin Mims also playing their part.

Breakers guard Daryl Corletto (four points/four rebounds) was relieved at the end to celebrate his 300th NBL game with a win.

"All week I didn't really say much - I just wanted to focus on getting the win and now we've got it, it's definitely a sweet win," said the man who's hoping for a contract extension from his new club.

He added he hadn't been surprised by the Crocs' competitiveness.

"They're a top-four team and were always going to make their runs.

They had two big wins last weekend, so we knew it was going to be a battle, and it was a battle for the full 40 minutes."

Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis had been happy that his team had won the effort areas, though lamented a lack of cohesion at the offensive end.

"At times we were our own worst enemies," said Lemanis. "No disrespect to Townsville who are a good team but I felt like we got in a funk at the offensive end. We were just out of sync and not running anything that resembled our offence, and as a result we had some clumsy possessions.

"We just need to clean up some of the mental things."

The Breakers had produced about as good an opening quarter as they'd managed all season as they ripped out of the blocks to a 29-15 lead.

But to the Crocs' credit they hung tough and though the Breakers' lead ballooned to 16 early in the second period, the visitors had whittled it down to a manageable eight (46-38) by the major break.

Sure enough the North Queenslanders then closed to within four early in the third, and were right in it as the game entered its final minutes.
Next up for the Breakers are nearest pursuers the Wildcats in Perth on Sunday week.

That should be something special with even Lemanis admitting that the minor premiership could well be decided that afternoon in the wild west.

NZ Breakers 81 (Gary Wilkinson 18, Cedric Jackson 15, Thomas Abercrombie 13, Alex Pledger 11).

Townsville Crocodiles 70 ( Eddie Gill 17, Peter Crawford 11, Jacob Holmes 11, Elvin Mims 10).

1Q: 29-15; HT:  46-38; 3Q: 63-56.

- © Fairfax NZ News