Rd 5 Preview | JackJumpers v Breakers

The Tasmania JackJumpers will play their second of three home games across six days on Sunday afternoon when they host the New Zealand Breakers at MyState Bank Arena.

After not playing for a week between beating the Illawarra Hawks in Wollongong last Friday night and then hosting the Adelaide 36ers at MyState Bank Arena this Friday, the JackJumpers are back in front of their home fans this Sunday afternoon.

They will take on the visiting Breakers with the game getting underway from 3pm.

Tasmania will be attempting to bounce back from that six-point defeat to the 36ers on Friday night that saw them concede top spot in the NBL standings and now sit on a 4-2 record.

The Breakers also played earlier this round back on Wednesday night when they won their Ignite Cup match up against the Sydney Kings in Canberra 102-101 to improve their season to a 4-3 record.

Both teams have done well to currently hold winning records while being without key players with the JackJumpers still without Majok Deng, Ben Ayre and Bryce Hamilton while the retired Anthony Drmic's roster spot has now been filled by Kody Stattmann.

The Breakers will arrive still without import pair Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Josiah-Jordan James but they will have some relief on the personnel front with the arrival of German international Nelson Weidemann who will be available to make his NBL debut on Sunday.

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth knows there's not much his team can do about this run of three games in six days other than just deal with it.

So there's no excuses being made, they have shaken off Friday night's loss and now are just going to give it their all back in front of the home fans on Sunday against the Breakers.

"We'll start to recover this evening (Friday) and then tomorrow (Saturday) before we have our shootaround mid-morning and then we'll rest up, and we'll get to go again on Sunday which is the exciting part of playing in a short turnaround and trying to wash some of this away and move on," Roth said.

"Obviously we've circled this six or seven days, whatever it is, with trying to manage our players and giving them the appropriate rest, but there's not much we can do.

"Tomorrow (Saturday) we'll just come in and do some video work and a light walk through of some of the stuff New Zealand will do, and it's just more about the rest and staying off their feet.

"The nice thing about the new high performance centre is that it has all the gadgets to allow our players to help with their recovery which we haven’t had in the past so all of that I'm sure will be in use as these guys get ready for Sunday afternoon."

Saturday's game will be the first time the two teams have met this season, but they have had quite a fascinating history against one another since the formation of the JackJumpers.

That included four meetings in NBL26 that saw the Breakers win the first three of them, but the JackJumpers hit back in the last contest on February 1 at home to win a 91-89 thriller.

Going back further and in 2024 they played one another on Christmas Day at MyState Bank Arena with Tasmania winning on that occasion 97-82.

They also played on New Year's Day of 2024 with the Breakers winning 98-93 in that match up and going back to NBL23, they played in a semi-final series with New Zealand winning two games to one on the way to reaching the Championship Series against the Sydney Kings.

Overall, the two teams have played 23 times over the past five seasons and precious little has separated them with the Breakers winning 12 of those and the JackJumpers 11.

HUNGRY JACK'S NBL SEASON 2026/27 | ROUND 5

TASMANIA JACKJUMPERS v New Zealand Breakers

MyState Bank Arena, Sunday October 18, 3:00pm

Watch live on ESPN via Disney+, Foxtel, Kayo or Fetch