Breakers' Next Move: Cairns

Predicting the Sky Sport Breakers' movements in Australia is becoming as challenging as predicting the next move in a chess match.

No one in their wildest imagination could’ve predicted the last 72 hours for the team – even in a season where the NBL21 tagline is “Expect the Unexpected”.

The team is now preparing for the Taipans in Cairns on Saturday night after the tough doubleheader against the champion Wildcats in Perth was rubbed out of the schedule over the weekend.

In scarcely believable scenes at the Breakers Adelaide hotel on Saturday morning, the bus was outside waiting to take the team to the airport when word filtered through 10 of the touring party were ill.

Everyone was forced back into their rooms to self-isolate, medical professionals were called, and the whole party had to take COVID tests.

This left the NBL little choice but to postpone the Sunday game against the Wildcats while everyone waited for test results to come back negative.

Barely six hours after the team was cleared, it was announced Perth was going into lockdown, and the second game scheduled for this week was off too.

“That script got flipped pretty quick, but while things like this may’ve surprised us a couple of weeks ago, now it’s just ‘okay, another game’s been postponed, it happens,’” says Breakers Captain Tom Abercrombie.

“We have no choice in the situation we’re in with things changing so often.  We’ve learned things can change any day.  You go into practice with one game plan and come out with another, so we’re just going with the flow and trying to keep each other up and motivated.”

Head Coach Dan Shamir says that with the benefit of hindsight, the situation is not as bad as Saturday morning when a number of his players were sick.

“We were in a very difficult place three days ago,” he says.

“Today, we’re healthier and we know what our next game is, and if we just put all our energies into that, then good things will happen.”

By the time the Taipans game rolls around on Saturday, it will be 10-days since the Breakers last played a game.

They have only played two league games so far, while the Taipans have played six!

“It’s been tough probably to play under these circumstances, and it’s probably not easy to coach and to operate under these circumstances,” says Shamir.

“With everything going on, we need to be focused on preparing ourselves and start winning games.  If we put all our energies and resources into better basketball and find ways to win games, we will feel much better about everything that is going on around us.”

The team remains based in Adelaide for now and is expecting to fly to Cairns on Thursday.