McNaught: Breakers Fanatic to Player

Friday, March 3, 2023

After being a fan celebrating the Breakers’ buzzer beating-championship win in 2015, New Zealand’s young guard Alex McNaught will come full circle tonight when he suits up for the team against the Sydney Kings in Game 1 of the Championship Series.

After being a fan celebrating the Breakers’ buzzer beating championship win in 2015, New Zealand’s young guard Alex McNaught will come full circle tonight when he suits up for the team against the Sydney Kings in Game 1 of the Championship Series.

McNaught was just 12-years-old when the Breakers won their last championship, and will now play alongside his childhood icons, including Tom Abercrombie, on the biggest stage.

The 20-year-old mentioned he remembers the day he watched his favourite team win their fourth championship against the Cairns Taipans thanks to an epic game winner from Ekene Ibekwe.

“I do remember partying a lot, celebrating for hours just amazed at what we’d just done. That’s something you’ll never forget,” McNaught said via 1 News NZ.

“Hopefully it’s not that close this time and we get it done a little easier than that. But it's awesome to be back to where that original spark of magic was.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's getting real ?<br><br>Who raises the NBL Championship trophy at the end of <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NBL23?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NBL23</a>? ?<br><br>It all kicks off ???????? ? <a href="https://t.co/8MTmPB3If5">pic.twitter.com/8MTmPB3If5</a></p>— NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1631149281389445120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 2, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

McNaught reminisced on the thought of being a Breaker as a young kid, watching the buzzer-beater winning game, to now eight years later playing with the team.

"It’s pretty surreal for me to be part of this team," he said.

The Breakers play the Kings tonight in Game 1 of the Championship Series. McNaught says New Zealand need to bring its grit and grind for the full 40 minutes.

“Everything is going to come down to whether or not we can do the small things right. They’re a talented team, it’s going to be a tough one but if we can go back to our roots and bring the intensity for all forty minutes, that’s how we’re going to try and do it,” he said.

The Kings host the Breakers tonight at 7:30pm AEDT. Watch the game live and free on ESPN via Kayo Freebies, 10 Peach, 10 Play, Sky Sport in NZ and free-to-air on Prime in NZ.