Justin Simon of the Sydney Kings and Barry Brown Jr of the NZ Breakers contest possession in game two of their NBL final series. Photo: Photosport
It's all square in the NBL grand final series after the Sydney Kings bounced back with an 81-74 defeat of the New Zealand Breakers in Auckland.
Depth was one of the Sydney Kings great strengths in winning last year's title and they employed it to good effect on Sunday night, while missing several of their first-team players.
New Zealand took game one in Sydney with an impressive all-round performance winning 95-87 and returned to Spark Arena with confidence for game two in front of a sold out Spark Arena crowd of 8429.
Things turned further in favour of the Breakers when Derrick Walton Jr lasted only a few minutes and Xavier Cooks played just nine minutes of the first half before both Sydney stars were ruled out for the rest of the game.
However, Sydney's depth has been a key reason in why they were the regular season champions and that was on show in Game 2.
It started with Kouat Noi stepping up for Cooks in that power forward spot and then Justin Simon was simply inspirational to produce a match-winning performance.
Simon finished with 12 points, nine rebounds and six steals and he above anybody else was the difference between the two teams to level up the Championship Series after the first two games, setting up a fascinating game three in Sydney on Friday.
With Cooks and Walton combining for two points in 14 minutes, it was a spectacular performance from the Kings and they won the rebound count, shot nine-from-22 from three-point land and their aggressiveness was rewarded with 22-from-34 at the foul line.
Noi ended up top-scoring for Sydney with 20 points and five rebounds too with DJ Vasiljevic landing 4/6 from three-point territory for 16 points.
Import Barry Brown Jr led the scoring for the Breakers with 21 points on four-from-nine three-point shooting with Jarrell Brantley adding 20 points and six rebounds.
Izayah Le'afa also landed 14 points, three rebounds and three assists, with the Kings doing well to limit game one hero Will McDowell-White to seven points, four assists and six turnovers.
It certainly wasn't a start at the offensive end for either team to enthuse over.
The Kings settled the quicker, though, and soon led 9-3 before Brown Jr and Le'afa sparked the Breakers off the bench with a basket each.
New Zealand couldn't build on that and Sydney closed the quarter with a 12-2 run that including three-point bombs to Angus Glover, Noi and Vasiljevic.
By the time Vasiljevic nailed another three-pointer for the Kings early in the second period his team was leading 26-13 but the Breakers responded with their best run of the game to score the next nine points with six of those courtesy of point guard McDowell-White.
It was an uncharacteristically inefficient first half from New Zealand who shot at 36 per cent in the first half with seven turnovers and just three offensive rebounds.
In the opening three minutes of the second half, Simon pulled off three steals to score five quick points including back-to-back thieving efforts on McDowell-White that led to dunks.
That put Sydney back up nine before Brown and Le'afa landed three balls for the Breakers.
They couldn't build momentum off that, though, and the Kings scored the next nine points including a three-point dagger from Simon.
Glover closed the third period with a three-pointer too and that saw the Kings lead 57-41 despite missing their two All-First Team members.
A dagger three from Vasiljevic early in the fourth pushed Sydney's lead out to 18 and while New Zealand did keep fighting, the Kings had all the answers to hold on and win by seven.
- RNZ