Russo nance was the only one who looked a bit like a point guard last game, so I'm not surprised

Fair play for Russo Nance he looks like he is growing in confidence game by game love it. Hard to be seen with BC on the roster last few seasons go young fella!

Pepper clearly doesn't like the NBL rings

Must be frustrating

Nice start by cats, I thought Nance was good last week and deserved it. Rillie has knockers but he doesn't play favourites. Breakers got some real quality but it thin, Terangi starting certainly doesn’t give you confidence

Feeding JLA makes Perth's offence look a lot better.

Wagstaff being the best hustle player should embarass the younger wildcats

PJC making Cats defenders look like traffic cones atm

Lat fumbles to the hoop after making eye contact with Mason Jones who is open like EZ plus with an acre of space for 3. Dafuq!? Benched and rightly so!

Apparently no wildcat players like the kiwi rings. So many open 3s missed

15% from 3

NZ not that much better at 20%

Not a pretty game so far

Amateur hour.

Half time and both teams are losing their own D-boards.
That can't be too common.

Perth need to feed Jones, can't be looking him off, then hes forcing it with no action run for him...

I think I've overrated both these teams, neither looking like they can handle the pressure. Hopefully Jones can actually make a bucket. Cats should still get this, breakers really rely on PJC, Lopez, Brockington, plus a few ok players.
Imo the commentary is much better with one caller, one expert commentary and one on the sideline as is today.

Foul for head contact.

Irrelevant that the head contact was by your team mate lol

Coach Kop looks like he hasn't slept for a week.

Some comical refing for perth atm.... phantom foul on windler, 10 week late travel

Shooting foul.... ffs perth is doing a good enough job of keeping nz in this without this

Leafa has turned into stef curry. lol.

Good God Perth. Do they have any offensive game plan? Other then whatever you do, do not, i repeat do not feed the hit hand in the post.... do not run a play for a stud import guard, launch from 3 when you can't hit....

Haha, when all else fails chuck Rillie in!

Lowery summing up Perths "system" perfectly.

Give it to Windler he seems to give a toss!

I love how Doolittle can make costly baskets so simply like that

Clearly Rjnr is the secret!

Jaron Rillie demonstrating the quality of the +/- metric here

Missed offensive foul on blocking tonight and an incorrect goal tends... really helping nz here

Jaron for threeeeeee
Doo with the dagger

Game over. Ugly, weird game over.

Jaron Rille looks like a very solid player

Doolittle, Windler and JLA could be a deadly combination.

Not something we say often but JR had a good game

R Jnr is a clever player, exactly what cats needed, cats too good in the end. It's going to be a long season for nz, PJC is a gun but just tries to do to much on his own. Lopez is young, going to be excellent but just making to many mistakes. Brockington, what’s happened today, the rest are very streaky at best. Windler, Doolittle, Jla, absolutel studs, Jones probably still settling in. Again R Jnr has smarts, gets the ball moving at the right time, looked good preseason as well. Henshall on D has been very good as well. I think you can see the difference between nbl1 and nbl in Peppers game.

As general rule, some of the imports are finding out this is no cup cake league.

I have no idea how Perth nearly lost that game. The Breakers are looking very ugly and again today a number of players looked gassed in the 4th quarter.

Rillie Jr kept it reasonably simple, fed into the stars and took the open 3.

Fitted perfect with how the lineup was playing.
Henshall upped his defence and did similar.

Perth are struggling to completely ulter their game from years of being cotton centric to now having multiple option centric offence . It will take them a little longer to find their rhythm and new identity. Guys like Windler and Doolittle have to get used to being more consistent scoring options as opposed to be complimentary pieces with Cotton.

In the meantime the cats need to go through JLA more . He looks like a completely different player than his United stint. His offensive game has improved so dramatically. Also Rillies young kid is poised with the ball but he is also a good catch and shoot player off the post kick outs to open the floor for JLA

If Mason doesnt improve over the next few games is he an early risk for being cut ? He is probably being paid a lot more than most of the import PGs in the league.

OK so I missed the game live and trying to make sense of what happened for the Breakers.

Brockington only played 18 minutes and benched at the end including when pjc on the bench. Is he that bad? And is he the problem? From what I've seen he's good on offence and with the ball so it's good defect that bad?

Davison only given 4 minutes - wtf is with that when he looked one of the best rebounders and defenders in the first two??

Baker 12 minutes and awful stats so assuming he has to go and quickly

Te rangi atrocious stats and didn't hit from the floor but played decent minutes. How is he getting minutes ahead of davison?

Judging by the stats there's so many rotation decisions that don't seem to make sense

Davidson had two turnovers in those short minutes, he has all the athletic qualities but has a lot to learn about the game. Bairstow probably should have got more minutes, he did very well. Leafa had a purple patch hitting threes but overall was average, Brockington seemed happy sitting on the bench, he was certainly smiling when camera went to him, I can't really comment on why so little time, just don’t know. Baker, Britt, Terangi just nothing games. Mennenga had strapping from his shoulder down under his singlet, could be carrying injury but overall all not much. Lopez and PJC your best but PJC got let it move more at times and Lopez got beat defensively a little too often. Just my take on nz today. NZ fooled me with their preseason, I thought they were top four material but it could be a very long season, to many average players. It’s a tough business but Baker should be on the plane. The whole teams D leaves a lot to be desired and coach Kop looks exhausted already. Cats were good when they put the foot through.

Anybody else worried about Masons handle?

He really doesn't handle pressure well, definitely needs to play next to a true point guard.

Yep i noticed the same thing Diop. He doesn't seem to have as good a handles as Bryce and probably not used to the pressure defense like the NBL. A few times he stopped dribbling and then had no one to pass it to. A lot of that could be because they're not in sync yet but it does look like so far he's not that secure with the ball.

Combine that with the positionless ball handling duties they run and Doo getting stripped a few times and Dante and Henshall still very young it doesn't bode well against good defensive teams. Ive never been a fan of not having at least one proper PG. On a positive note Dante is improving well and looks good for the future.

Dante's peak should be interesting.

Lol my bad PW however its spelled.

I didn't even attempt the french NS.

My thoughts from being in the arena on Saturday. A half full arena mind you - a game that started 30 minutes after the All Blacks game was not going to get a crowd. I don't know who designed the NBL schedule but surely you avoid games in either Melbourne/NZ on the evening of the AFL GF and the Bledisloe.

Lopez was the best Breaker on the floor on offense. I know PJC stepped up in that fourth Q run, but Karim kept us offensively in the game. Every drive of his looked like an opportunity (where PJC was chucking). It's just that his defense isn't there, certainly not in the 4th against Windler who knows how to find the corner 3's. I hope this is a good learning experience for him.

After the game, I pondered whether Solovosky should've received more credit for his work last season in the 9-3 run. Now, I'm wondering if by going with Kiwis we're facing the same problem we had last year - a PJC/Kop-led team wants to run but we have key bench players too slow to execute that strategy. Particularly at the 5 spot - Rob Loe may have been passable 5 years ago, but definitely not anymore.

The irony is that the roster could've been constructed better. If we signed a Gillespie/Pardon-type 5 to back up Mennenga, we then could've signed Hyrum Harris in Te Rangi's current role starting. NZ NBL defensive player of the year. Hustle guy, do-it-all playmaker. I'm okay with that kind of player as a local, but an elevated version of that as an import isn't going to pan out unless they're elite at two-way play (either like Cooks under the basket, or a Darius Bazley-type).

I anticipate the reason they went with Loe was they have Darling/Davison/Bairstow in the wings who play a similar position. But right now, Kop doesn't know which one to play, and then relies on Te Rangi who doesn't have the foot speed. Based on NZ NBL performance, Davison stands out yet his D (or his left-hand dribble) isn't up to standard.

Brockington will figure it out - he didn't get much minutes because Le'afa stepped up. This team depends on finding 3 Kiwis on the bench (including Te Rangi) that can be dependable and can take an offensive load. Le'afa was always a possibility of doing that, I can't establish at this stage who the other 2 will be.

If anything, the challenge Brockington will have is whether he can move to the 3 to play alongside Le'afa and PJC. The strength of Breaker teams that went on runs was the ability to play 3-guard lineups, but that means two need to guard wings. When you had Barry Brown, Le'afa and WMW (all above 6'2'), it was possible. PJC on the floor means the other two have to guard wings - can Brockington? That may be the second question that defines the season.

Agree with your post pyro with the exception of davison's defence - i think it's pretty strong and better than loe, baker, te rangi and lopez. Darling also seems out of favour despite last year being played due to his defensive ability. A bit confusing really.

I campaigned leading into the season that the Breakers need to sign an outright 5 and play menninga across 4 and 5 spots. He's a very good young player but was always going to get eaten alive against the JLAs/Edwards/McGees of the league.

I'm curious how much say Kop had in the recruitment of RTR and Loe especially... Leafa as well. I suspect not much and he paid lip service to wanting them in the roster.

I think leafa is a solid back up guard, especially defensively.

Te rangi and loe combined are absolutely hopeless - have shot 5 from 21 3ptrs - and both near lowest for efficiency.

Someone on here in the offseason tried to claim that te rangi was valued by Roth (even though released!) so hopefully he'll take him back to get him off our hands!