Better fight from BNZ Breakers as road end in sight

Sebastian Gleim doesn’t like losing, so he would never say he enjoyed the experience in Melbourne on Monday night, but he did like the fight shown by the BNZ Breakers as they begin to see the end of the tunnel of a gruelling road run.

For the second time in the past three games, Gleim stepped up to take on the head coaching duties with Gordie Herbert falling unwell on Monday afternoon in Melbourne when the BNZ Breakers took on United at John Cain Arena.

Herbert had been savage in reacting to his team's performance back on Friday night in their first, and only, game in October at home back on Friday night in the loss to the Adelaide 36ers meaning a strong response was expected in Melbourne on Sunday.

And despite the eventual 94-74 defeat, the performance was a lot more competitive than that final scoreline suggests in what was already an eighth game in Australia of the season in 11 games of NBL27 for the BNZ Breakers.

The good news is with 22 games of the season, that means only nine of those will be outside of New Zealand so in a lot of ways the worst is behind them, but the BNZ Breakers do remain on the road this Friday night to play the Tasmania JackJumpers in Launceston.

On top of the heavy road schedule, the BNZ Breakers are yet to have Josiah-Jordan James or Preston Le Gassick for a single game while Parker Jackson-Cartwright has missed three games and they've had plenty to deal with.

That's why, in reflection after Monday night's loss in Melbourne, Gleim is still upbeat about the prospects for the BNZ Breakers this season, especially once they get to December and they have a run of four straight home matches.

"I still think we are in a very good position because it's a long season and I don't wish anything bad for any team, but there will be also other teams being up and down," Gleim said.

"We have in December a home December, so we play only at home for a lot of December and it's extremely hard to travel every week because you lose this practice time, and we have had a lot of away games at the beginning.

"That's not in our control and we had before chances to win in two possession games or maybe three.

"Today, it was more and it was a clear thing for Melbourne today, but I think we go now to Tassie and we go there on the court, and we'll try to learn from film.

"We'll try to go on the court and practice, and that's what we do. We never give up and we fight."

One thing that Herbert was clear to point out following the home loss on Friday night to Adelaide was that he wasn’t happy with the effort put forward from the group in the first half.

He feels, and rightfully so, that effort should be a non-negotiable that the players bring and they did respond in the second half of that game, and it's not something that Gleim could question through the four quarters from the group on Monday night in Melbourne.

"First of all, congrats to Melbourne United, they deserved to win and made big plays, and played extremely smart," Gleim said.

"They used all their players on offence and found each other so first of all, they deserved to win that game but we fought and I'm proud of our guys how we tried to come back any time we were down.

"We tried and we tried, but we couldn't get control in the game which is what you need to win here.

"Again it was an uncommon situation, we just came here and Gordie felt really unwell so we jumped in and we fought on the court also for him to get that win."

Gleim is quick to make clear that he is not the head coach, he is just the lead assistant stepping in when needed when unfortunately Herbert has been unavailable to take to the sidelines in two of the past three games through health.

It was a significantly shorter preparation time he had to be in charge for the game on Monday night, but the planning had already been done for the game and it was just about stepping up when needed, and now handing back control to Herbert again this week.

"I only found out in the car on the way here, I just stepped in the car and coach said he is really unwell. So all the best for him to get a quick recovery and I just stepped up," Gleim said.

"I don't like losing, I don't enjoy losing but I really enjoy being part of the Breakers. I love it, I love New Zealand and I'm very proud to be with the Breakers, but I don't like losing.

"So I don't care if I'm on the line, if I'm on the bench, if I bring up the water it doesn't matter for me. I just don't like losing."