JackJumpers fall to Breakers across the Tasman

The Tasmania JackJumpers had an afternoon to forget in Auckland losing to the on-fire New Zealand Breakers 94-62 on Sunday.

The Breakers were fresh off a thumping 99-70 win in Adelaide over the highly fancied 36ers on Friday and if you take out last Thursday's 99 points they conceded to the South East Melbourne Phoenix, their defence has been outstanding.

It was again the case at Spark Arena on Sunday as they held the JackJumpers to just 25 points in the first half and 62 for the game while limiting them to shooting 33 per cent from the field and 25 per cent from deep along with causing 14 turnovers.

While New Zealand had just 33 points themselves to half-time, they did have 31 in the third quarter and then scored the first 10 of the fourth term to blow the game wide open on the way to the 32-point win in front of 3811 fans.

On top of the defensive master class, New Zealand piled on 61 second half points with Barry Brown again leading the charge with 24 points on 9/11 shooting from the field and 4/5 from beyond the arc.

Milton Doyle was a virtual lonehand offensively for Tasmania with 22 points and six rebounds.

Jack McVeigh added 11 points and three rebounds, Josh Magette seven points and five boards, and Rashard Kelly six points and seven rebounds despite struggling shooting with 3/14.

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth obviously wasn’t happy with the result after winning four straight, but is relieved October is now over.

"Congratulations to those guys, they've been playing fantastic and you get a big piece of humble pie in this league, and we got our butts handed to us," Roth said.

"It is what it is and we are sitting 4-4, and to me we've had our toughest stretch of the season that's over with in October. At some point it was a little bit of just trying to survive October to get where we are. 

"I'm not satisfied, but I'm quite relieved at least that we are sitting in the position we are because we've had a hell of a month, and our guys have done quite well."

Both defences locked in from the start as expected but the Breakers did score eight straight points early beginning with a Will McDowell-White triple before Dererk Pardon went to work down low.

Josh Magette got Tasmania going with a triple and then Milton Doyle hit two of his own on his way to eight points in the first quarter, but it was a defensive grind with the Breakers leading 17-15 after one.

Despite an early three-pointer from Jarrell Brantley in the second period, points remained tough to come by for both teams. However, New Zealand did go into half-time up by eight with Barry Brown hitting nine of his 11 points in the second term.

It was all about the defence by half-time, though, with the Breakers shooting just 38 per cent and the JackJumpers 30 while New Zealand had 26 rebounds to 21.

Things really opened up offensively in the third quarter and that was to the Breakers' benefit on their home floor. On the back of a triple from Brown and and-one from Pardon, New Zealand went on a 9-0 run made up of a three-point play from McDowell-White and then three balls from Brown and Brantley.

That pushed the lead out to double-figures and it was 14 by three quarter-time on the back of a put back from Next Star Rayan Rupert on the buzzer.

New Zealand clamped down further holding Tasmania scoreless for the first four minutes of the fourth quarter. 

The JackJumpers also didn’t hit a field goal for nine minutes while the Breakers kept rolling including the first 10 points of the final period on the way to the 32-point win just two days after hammering the Sixers in Adelaide by 29.

The JackJumpers will head to Perth to take on the Wildcats on Thursday before heading straight back home to host the Brisbane Bullets on Sunday.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL ROUND 5

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS 62 (Doyle 22, McVeigh 11, Magette 7) 

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 94 (Brown 24, Pardon 15, McDowell-White 13)

BOX SCORE