Lamb injury "doesn't look so good": Maor

When Anthony Lamb went down with a lower leg injury in the first quarter of Sunday’s clash with Perth, minds went back to how New Zealand capitulated in games where they lost Zylan Cheatham and Will McDowell-White earlier in the season.

That didn’t happen this time though. The ship steadied, the tides turned, and the Breakers emerged with a victory that could prove to shake up the race for the Play-In positions in the final two rounds of the season.

Lamb played under nine minutes in the win, as the likes of Cheatham and Parker Jackson-Cartwright guided their side to an 11-point win against the Wildcats in front of the Red Army.

With the likes of Justinian Jessup, Finn Delany, Will McDowell-White and Cheatham missing swathes of the season so far, the clash marked the first time Mody Maor had his full roster available, and he believes his side’s response to Lamb’s injury shows just how much injury hardship they’ve been through this season.

“It shows we’ve been there before. We’ve lost players in games, we’ve lost players between games, and this was the first game all year I’ve had my full roster – and that was for a quarter,” Maor said post-game.

“We know how to overcome this, we know how to play like this, we know how to respond to this, it’s something where the growing pains paid off.

“In the previous games, for example when 'Z' (Cheatham) broke his foot in the middle of a game we fell off a cliff. Today we stuck with it, kept doing things our way so I’m very happy with the growth, very happy with the process, obviously I’m sad that Anthony’s hurt but other than that, good.

“[The injury] doesn’t look so good. We’ll wait for the official report, but it doesn’t look so good.”

After they played the final game of Round 18, New Zealand has embarked on a quickfire trip across Australia and back to Auckland in time to host Illawarra for the opening game of Round 19.

The Breakers will then travel to Melbourne to face United on Sunday, before they face another double-header to finish off the regular season in Round 20.

Ahead of the new round New Zealand has played fewer games than any team in the competition – bar Friday’s opponents, Illawarra – which has left its Finals destiny in its own hands.

“I know you guys want to talk about the travel because it makes us gladiators that we travel tough, and it’s hard, and I get it, but we don’t care,” Maor said of the schedule.

“We will fly tomorrow, then we’ll have a day off and then we’ll practice and get ready for the game because this is how we do it. You’re not going to get anything from me on this.

“It doesn’t matter. What the people need to know is these guys take advantage of every opportunity in front of them to get better. The care factor in this group is ridiculous.

“If anybody wants to understand anything it’s that, that these guys give us everything they have all the time.”

New Zealand will face the Hawks on Friday at 5:30pm AEDT, live on ESPN via Kayo, and Sky Sport in NZ.