Olbrich, Hawks dominate Breakers

There was some encouraging signs from Tacko Fall's NBL debut with the New Zealand Breakers but overall the Illawarra Hawks dominated the contest as NBL25 resumed with their 109-71 home victory.

Thursday night saw the NBL season resume following the FIBA international window at the WIN Entertainment Centre in a second against third match up, but the Hawks were in control from go to woe.

Illawarra put up 32 points to just 12 in the first quarter and went on with the job from there to end up blowing it out late for the 38-point win to improve to 8-4 on the season.

The Breakers were still without Jonah Bolden, Karim Lopez and welcomed in the NBL's tallest ever player for the first time with the 7'6 Fall playing having been signed to replace the departed Freddie Gillespie.

Across his 14 minutes in the game, Fall showed some signs that he can be a dominant presence at times in the league at both ends when he is around the basket.

Despite the Breakers losing by 38 points, Fall was only -10 in his time on the floor where he finished with four points, five rebounds and five blocks.

However, the Hawks had too many weapons and were on top right from the start ending up with 51 rebounds to 33 for the game with six players scoring in double-digits led by Lachlan Olbrich with a career-high 21 on 8/9 shooting.

Trey Kell III also had 17 points, four rebounds and four assists, Tyler Harvey 15 points, five assists and four boards, Wani Swaka Lo Buluk 13 points, Darius Days 11 points and seven rebounds despite not starting, and Sam Froling 10 points and seven boards.

Understandably, there was plenty for Hawks coach Justin Tatum to like afterwards.

"It was just a total team effort and I'm really happy with the practices we had over these last 12 days, and happy that our guys who got to play for their national team got that experience to bring back that hunger that they gained from that," Tatum said.

"And we just wanted to build off that Sydney game and there were a lot of things that played right for us."

It was a tough night for New Zealand who shot just 35 per cent overall with Parker Jackson-Cartwright finishing with 19 points, three rebounds and three assists while Mojave King returned from injury for 11 points in 21 minutes.

Breakers coach Petteri Koponen just felt his team got outrun and outworked highlighted by the Hawks having 23 points off turnovers to eight, and 27 fast break points to three.

"We got outrun tonight, every time we had a turnover it led to a fast break and we got killed," he said.

"It was a big topic before coming to this game because they are the fastest team in the league so the key focus for us was our transition defence, and it wasn’t there tonight and it doesn’t help when you miss all the shots so they get the rebounds and always punish you."

Both teams had a host of players back from international duties over the FIBA break, but it was the Hawks who came out ready to fire including scoring 15 consecutive points in the first quarter capped off by a Wani Swaka Lo Buluk three-pointer.

Lachlan Olbrich then finished off the quarter with a dunk in transition after a dribble around his back to get by his defender and the Hawks were well on top with the 32-12 advantage by quarter-time.

It was another 20 points to 17 from the Hawks in the second quarter to see the home team remain in control at 52-29 going into the break with Swaka Lo Buluk the star with 13 points on a perfect 4/4 shooting.

The Hawks also had 31 rebounds to 20 with New Zealand only shooting at 27 per cent from the floor and an abysmal 2/17 from downtown with Tacko Fall playing his first seven NBL minutes for two points, five rebounds and five blocks.

The Breakers did come out a different looking unit in the third quarter and they put up 27 points on the back of just 29 in the entire first half.

That included going 4/8 from downtown as their shot started to fall and the Breakers had cut the Hawks lead back to 16 by three quarter-time.

Illawarra had pushed that lead back out to 23 with the first 10 points of the final quarter and that was enough to secure the eventual 38-point victory thanks to their 37 points in the final period.

Both teams back up to play again in Round 10 with Illawarra up first on Saturday away to the South East Melbourne Phoenix while the Breakers head west to take on the Perth Wildcats on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2024/25

ILLAWARRA HAWKS 109 (Olbrich 21, Kell III 17, Harvey 15)

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 71 (Jackson-Cartwright 19, King 11, Mennenga 9)

BOX SCORE