Off to a flyer with a Game 1 Championship Series victory over the Kings, the Breakers failed to follow up in Game 2, falling to Sydney 81-74.
The title hopefuls showed just a sliver of their first-game dominance throughout the battle, looking bamboozled by the reigning champions in front of a home Auckland crowd.
While Mody Maor’s squad started the series in hot form, former Tall Black and basketball commentator Brook Ruscoe feels the Breakers were too focused on being individual heroes rather than working together as a whole.
“This has happened a couple of times for the Breakers this year, this isn’t the first time,” Ruscoe told SENZ Mornings.
“They’ve had three or four games where it just hasn’t worked, they haven’t shot the ball well from deep.
“Coach Mody at one point as I was following the time out, he just said to the boys, ‘We’re playing hero ball here. We’ve got to this point of the season by playing as a team and now all of a sudden we want to be … you know, Jon Jones at the moment with the heavyweight KO.’
“It’s just … it wasn’t working last night, they needed to go back to playing as a team and I also thought they kind of played tentative.
“They kind of played like they were playing on the back foot and if you’re playing basketball, you have to be the aggressors and they have been the aggressors all year.
“They were just passing the ball, careless turnovers, no one was attacking the paint, the floaters that they were doing so well in game one – not that they weren’t taking them - they just weren’t even getting in the position to be around the paint.”
At no point in the match did the Breakers hold the lead, winning just one quarter to the Kings’ three in their seven-point defeat.
Despite their drop in form, Ruscoe holds faith that the Breakers will bounce back in Game 3 to win their next two matches and claim the trophy without a fifth-game decider.
“I see this going to four,” he added.
“I have the Breakers winning the next two and I might look like a bit of a fool saying that right now but I said that before Game 2, I’ve got the Breakers winning the next two.
“I think they go over there in Sydney and they get the job done … (and) I wouldn’t be surprised if the Breakers come back here and win it in four and it would just, it would feel right.
“They’ve sacrificed so much over the last two years with COVID … so I wouldn’t be surprised if next Sunday (captain) Tom Abercrombie is holding up the trophy and that’s the last time that we see Tom play for the Breakers.”
Abercrombie will lead the Breakers to Game 3 on Friday night at Qudos Bank Arena.