Koponen: The moment Breakers "clicked"

It can't be underestimated what a performance it is from the New Zealand Breakers to be sitting on top of the NBL after Saturday night's huge win, but coach Petteri Koponen is firmly focused with Melbourne United on the horizon.

While there was still no Mojave King, Mitch McCarron or Max Darling, the Breakers were brilliant for 40 minutes and at both ends of the floor to beat the high-flying Adelaide 36ers by 27 points at Spark Arena.

That win takes New Zealand to top spot in the NBL at 5-2 ahead of Monday night's clash in Melbourne and given everything they've been through over the last seven weeks, that is a remarkable performance.

It wasn’t lost on first-year coach Koponen that the Breakers weren’t rated coming into the season and still aren’t if you look at the championship odds, but he knows it's far too early to celebrate.

"It's a great start, but the key thing is that it's still early and there is a lot of basketball to play and a lot of things can happen," Koponen said.

"It is a great start especially considering what everybody thought about the season with where everybody ranked us, but the guys have showed up to keep on getting better.

"It starts every day in practice and having the will to get to the gym and get better, and playing great basketball together and trusting each other.

"That's what basketball is, a team sport and doing things together defensively and offensively. That's how we want to play and the guys are doing this right now, but we are still the underdogs of the league.

"Even if we have a good start, there's no time to celebrate or to try, we have to keep working and getting better, and don't start to feel too good."

If you go back to last Thursday night and the Breakers were missing three key players to injury, they lost in Christchurch to the South East Melbourne Phoenix by 26 points and it looked like a gruelling travel schedule had caught up with them.

They then had to head to Sydney to take on the Kings three days later, but what they produced was a performance full of heart to score the four-point road. They then backed it up emphatically at home to the 36ers.

The Breakers shot 60 per cent from the field for the game, they got to the foul line 26 times and had Parker Jackson-Cartwright putting up 25 points, Karim Lopez 17, Matt Mooney 17, Sam Mennenga 14 and Freddie Gillespie 13.

Their defence was also superb anchored by Gillespie with 5 blocks, as they limited the high-scoring Sixers to 82 points on 46 per cent shooting.

For that performance to back up what the Breakers did in Sydney last Sunday says a lot to coach Koponen about the character this team is showing,

"It's about trusting the things that we have been doing from the beginning and keeping guys responsible, and I think in Sydney something clicked," Koponen said.

"We took huge responsibility and everybody realised how we want to play, and how we need to play if you want to compete in this league.

"Now the last two games we were there, everybody, and that's what it takes if you want to be a good basketball team.

"There are no magic tricks, every day we go into the gym trying to get better to try and improve the things we have, and it's about the grind step by step.

"There's still lots of things to improve and all credit to the guys for showing up every day to work on getting better, and enjoying playing basketball together."