Sixers Finish NBL22 with Big Win Over Breakers

The Adelaide 36ers have ended a frustrating NBL season in their best form of NBL22 capping things off with a dominant 93-60 victory against the New Zealand Breakers in Hobart on Sunday.

It will be a season that the Sixers look back on with frustration in coach CJ Bruton's first year in charge with it ending with just the 10 wins, but the positive is they have finished with some momentum that they will hope to now build on moving forward.

The Sixers will be disappointed they didn’t close the season with four consecutive road wins as well. They were brilliant back in Round 20 winning both in Perth and Sydney, and then for most of the night on Friday they were on track to beat the South East Melbourne Phoenix.

However, they gave up a 17-point lead to the Phoenix and ended up losing by three leading into Sunday's clash to close the season at MyState Bank Arena on Sunday against the bottom placed Breakers.

You wouldn’t have a heart if you didn’t feel for what the Breakers have endured this season and now for Sunday's game, they had to wait nine days to finish their season and were missing Yanni Wetzell, Ousmane Dieng and Hugo Besson who could all be NBA level talent.

The Sixers built more and more momentum the longer the game went too as they closed their season in impressive fashion with the 33-point win. They turned a seven-point half-time lead into the eventual 26-point win to end the season at 10-18.

Sunday Dech finished his standout form to close the season with 19 points, seven rebounds, four assists and four steals.

Mojave King had his best game of the season too with 15 points and some nice finishes at the rim with Todd Withers adding 14 points and seven rebounds, Dusty Hannahs 13 points, Kai Sotto 12 points, seven rebounds and four blocks, and Todd Withers nine points, four boards and four assists.

Sixers coach CJ Bruton is proud of the way his team has finished their season with three road wins, and another against the Phoenix that so easily could have been.

"I've got a smile on my face and it's been a tough road, and a challenging one, but finishing off strong in the last four games is a good way to finish," Bruton said. 

"It's easy to give up when you know you're not in the playoffs, but there's always a lot to play for with the pride of the 36ers, we've got our own families and the commitment to the community, our sponsors and each other. 

"When you start out to do something, we all try to achieve the ultimate and while this isn’t our time, you still have a job to do and we've done it well. We showed that we are united in that space."

The Breakers now finish the season having lost their past 10 matches at 5-23, but they will firstly now be relieved to return home for the first time since mid-November.

Chasson Randle finished with 14 points for the Breakers with Rasmus Bach contributing 14 points, Finn Delany nine points and six rebounds, and Rob Loe nine points and 10 boards.

Breakers coach Dan Shamir reflected post-match on the emotions he is feeling now that a six-month journey this season for his team away from home is over.

"After a game are a little bit emotional because of the game and you don't want to get embarrassed like that so let's close that game first," Shamir said. 

"I don't think we came not caring at all and I know the people in this locker room are not like that, but when it went bad, we couldn’t make shots. We got some good looks, but just couldn’t make shots and it turned bad and it's obviously the end of the road for us and it became very ugly. 

"We didn’t play for nine days and in those nine days we did the work and practiced, but I'm sure that everybody was thinking to put this chapter behind them. It's been crazy and if we knew that was going to happen for two years, that we're not going to have a semi normal situation, probably a lot of people don't sign up for that," Shamir added.

"But there's nobody to blame and we just caught in it. We made some mistakes obviously like everybody and we did with little things and big things, but a very big factor was just living in a hotel for two years, not having home games and we're not making excuses, but this part is behind all of us now and everybody takes off from here."

Both teams were determined to end their frustrating seasons on a winning note and it was Chasson Randle and Sunday Dech who opened up on fire for their respective teams.

Randle hit two early threes for the Breakers on his way to eight first-quarter points while Dech put up nine points for the period. The Sixers worked their way on top and Dech started an 11-0 run that helped them to the 21-16 quarter-time edge.

Todd Withers then hit a pair of three balls to open the second period for Adelaide with his second sparking a run of 11 straight points to see their lead grow to 35-23.

Just as things were slipping away for the Breakers, they dug deep starting with Finn Delany and then a couple of big finishes from Sam Timmins, and then an and-one from Delany. However, Dusty Hannahs gave Adelaide the last six points of the half and they were up 41-34.

It was a hot start to the second half from the 36ers with Dech at the forefront of it all still hitting the first four points. Withers then knocked down a triple and the lead was out to 14 and Dan Shamir had to talk it over.

It didn’t work with Withers putting up five more quick points for the Sixers and when Hannahs drilled a triple in transition, the Adelaide advantage was out to 20, and 22 by three quarter-time with Dufelmeier scoring on the buzzer.

Both teams just came out and let it fly through the fourth quarter to close out the season with the 36ers especially enjoying themselves on the way to the 33-point win.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 21

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 60 (Randle 14, Bach 14, Loe 9)

ADELAIDE 36ERS 93 (Dech 19, King 15, Withers 14) 

BOX SCORE