Breakers “Hopeful” on Brown Jr

New Zealand Breakers coach Mody Maor and star guard Barry Brown Jr are both “hopeful” the Best Sixth Man will be healthy for Game 1 of their Playoff series against the Tasmania JackJumpers on Sunday.

Stuff has revealed Brown Jr is dealing with a hand injury, reporting “the Breakers are sweating” on his availability.

Brown Jr was crowned the Best Sixth Man on Tuesday night and he is New Zealand’s leading scorer at 19.5 points per game.

Regardless of Brown Jr’s status, Maor explained the preparations for tomorrow’s Game 1 remains the same as the regular season.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">?There are still some great tickets available for playoff game 1 this Sunday! <br><br>Be quick to snap up our last courtside and lower bowl seats ? <br><br>?: <a href="https://t.co/GiEzkswStV">https://t.co/GiEzkswStV</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/UNBREAKABLE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#UNBREAKABLE</a> <a href="https://t.co/HOCB1oZNpj">pic.twitter.com/HOCB1oZNpj</a></p>&mdash; Sky Sport New Zealand Breakers (@NZBreakers) <a href="https://twitter.com/NZBreakers/status/1623861804828065793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“Nothing changes for us,” Maor said via Stuff.

“We believe in the things we’ve done and we believe in how good we are when we play our way.

“I see no reason why that needs to change coming into semifinals or finals. You just need to be the best version of yourself and for this you have your routines in place.

“It’s identical to all the messages I’ve been giving from day one. This isn’t about keeping everything normal because nothing is normal – it’s keep everything normal because normal works.”

Game 1 of the best-of-three Playoff series between the Breakers and JackJumpers is tomorrow at 4pm AEDT at Spark Arena. The game will be broadcast live on ESPN via Kayo Freebies, 10 Peach and 10 Play.