Halftime Rev-Up Key
Tagged in: NZ Breakers, Tall Blacks
Joel Tiller, Sportal
NZ Breakers lynch-pin shooting guard Kirk Penney says his career-high 41-point haul wasn’t the key to his team’s fourth quarter demolition of Wollongong in the ANBL Hummer Championship on Thursday night.
Penney was at his outstanding best for the Kiwi franchise during their season opening 114-93 home court win.
The laconic 27-year-old Tall Black shot the lights out with 16/22 field goal stats including 6/10 from outside the arc and 3/3 from the three throw line. He also dragged down six boards and shared three assists for good measure.
But despite eclipsing his previous NBL career highest tally of 32 points with a blistering second half (31 of his 41 points came after half-time), Penney said that a half-time mentality shift was the key. An old fashioned changing room bollocking from coach Andrej Lemanis apparently the catalyst for a significant team lift in intensity.
“The coach just called a few of us out as individuals, which he need to, and ultimately what that does is everyone’s listening and everyone has to be accountable,” he said.
“The other thing we did was we changed our defence into a more aggressive pressure defence and that really worked. It made us be more aggressive and put them on the back foot - it was effective.”
Effective indeed. After second and third quarters of 25 and 24 points the fourth reaped only 18 points for Wollongong while the Breakers correspondingly lifted to 29, 29 and 35 in those same periods.
Penney says the hot fourth quarter shooting streak that saw Oscar Forman smoke three triples in three attempts was due to a Wollongong unit running out of steam.
“Because we were pushing up the floor and they were struggling to find us, struggling to match up and we were finding space - I think one time CJ just threw it up the floor to Oscar and he had a couple of looks and made his second one,” said Penney.
“We feed off our defence and when it’s going really well our offence becomes so much easier and I think you saw that tonight.”
As for his own form Penney is typically low-key.
“It’s just all about game time,” he said. “And I got some good looks tonight. I was certainly feeling good out there, we’ve had a really good preseason and I just think it really helps that everyone’s healthy.”
“That’s a big difference this year and it’s a far cry from where we were last season. All things considered it was a great game and we’re looking forward to moving on from here.”
But he was far more effusive about the return of good friend and rebounding machine Rick Rickert - who contributed an energiser bunny 12 point 13 rebound double.
“His enthusiasm is contagious,” said Penney. “It’s awesome to see him out there again, I’m so glad, he’s a great friend of mine and he’s only going to get better.”
“He missed a lot of bunnies tonight, shots he’d usually make so it’s exciting that he’ll keep on getting better.”
“It’s the offensive rebounds in particular, not just his rebounding totals. He gets second chance shots for us, he kicks them out to shooters and more often than not he finishes them himself too. He’ll continue to do that because he plays at such a consistently high intensity level.”
After a good start the Breakers are set for a real yardstick test next Thursday when they take on a talent-laden Melbourne Tigers at the North Shore Events centre.
