Trust on Breakers’ Side, Says Abercrombie

Saturday, March 11, 2023

The New Zealand Breakers lost 91-68 in Game 3 of the Championship Series, but captain Tom Abercrombie believes with trust on their side, they can turnaround the 2-1 series deficit.

The Breakers headed into Sydney’s kingdom on Friday and fell short in front of a record NBL crowd of 18,049, succumbing to the pressure with several mistakes.

Key piece Jarrell Brantley fouled out in the fourth, and a whopping 12-minute run without any field goals saw the Kings build an insurmountable lead.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/SydneyKings?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SydneyKings</a> locked their defence down and got their scoring ?to run out as comfortable Game 3 winners in the NBL23 Championships Series ?<br><br>Re-live the best bits thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/HungryJacksAU?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HungryJacksAU</a> ? <a href="https://t.co/hViqXwhTZr">pic.twitter.com/hViqXwhTZr</a></p>— NBL (@NBL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL/status/1634298085269438465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

However, New Zealand has a chance to level the series tomorrow in front of a record crowd at Spark Arena, and Abercrombie is keeping the faith.

“Trust ourselves [moving forward], trust our system, trust our teammates,” Abercrombie said.

“Confidence is a hard thing to master, but we have to go in guns blazing and play our hearts out for our home crowd.

“Not ideal, we had a number of guys in foul trouble tonight, we’ll have a look at how we defended and make some adjustments.”

With the highest score of just 11 points from Will McDowell-White, the New Zealand side only managed to score 21 points in the second half.

Head coach Mody Maor still believes they can drag this series to five games in the hopes of taking home the championship.

“If you lose your focus for a few minutes, the game breaks over,” Maor said.

“We know who we are, and we know we aren’t playing to our level.

“I believe in our guys’ ability to go and put together a good 40 minutes and come back for Game 5.”

Game 4 of the Championship Series will be crucial for the Breakers, and it is down to them to extend the series to five games.

Tip-off on Sunday is 4:00pm AEDT at Spark Arena in front of the biggest crowd in Breakers’ history. Watch the game live and free on ESPN via Kayo Freebies, and Sky Sport and Prime in NZ.