History repeated at the NSEC tonight, and once again the NZ Breakers were the ones walking off their court shaking their heads.

A year ago nearly to the day the Wollongong Hawks came to this venue and sat the smokin' hot 5-1 NZ Breakers on their backsides with a 16-point upset. It was to be one of just three defeats on their home court as the Kiwis marched to their historic title triumph.

New season, same result tonight. Once again the struggling Hawks -- 2-5 heading in -- crossed the ditch and made their 5-1 Kiwi hosts look decidedly ordinary as they blitzed them 81-63 to put a serious dent in their early-sweason momentum.

The Breakers never got any sort of rhythm going on offence and left the deadly Hawks shooters open far too often to ever hope to win this contest. Their first home defeat of the season drops them to 5-2.

The Hawks were led splendidly by heady point guard Rhys Martin who tallied a game-high 20 points (7/10 FG) as he had his way too often with some loose Breakers defence. He had support throughout the visiting squad as they shot at a pretty handy 49 percent clip.

The Breakers were led by CJ Bruton's 10 points but at two-from-nine from the field it was hardly a stellar night for the struggling veteran. American point guard Cedric Jackson, as promised, shrugged off his ankle problem to take his place in the lineup. But he needn't have bothered, clearly limited by the injury as he went just two-of-11 en route to five points and a lone assist.

Profligacy was the order of the night for the Breakers who shot a woeful 30 percent (21/70 FG) from the floor and an even worse 17 from deep (three-of-18). They had 20 more shots than their visitors, yet didn't get within a sniff of the win.

Even in-form American forward Gary Wilkinson caught the bug, finishing with just eight points (2/9 FG) and a pair of rebounds. Tom Abercrombie's nine points (4/13 FG) and four boards weren't pretty either and the normally rock-solid Mika Vukona made just one of his six field goals as he talled six points and 12 rebounds.

The Breakers looked worryingly short of threats from deep as the shots failed to drop throughout, and they missed a host of gimmes at the rim. This is a defeat that will have raised some alarm bells in their camp, and hopes around the rest of the league.

"We had open looks, stuff we'd expect to knock down, and when we missed those we got a little frustrated and started playing a little rushed and second-guessed ourselves a bit," surmised coach Andrej Lemanis afterwards.

"It snowballed into a performance that was frustrating. We just couldn't find our rhythm and we missed shots."

Lemanis said he couldn't explain why his men missed so many shots at the rim.

"Hopefully it's not a trend. They junk up their defence, that's how they play and we understand that. We had an emphasis on attacking at the rim and I thought we did a good job of that -- we just didn't finish the plays and then the frustration built."

Lemanis said shooting numbers like his side returned were never going to produce a happy ending, and the Breakers had to put it down to a bad night at the office and switch their focus to the next task at hand - the Taipans in Cairns next Sunday.

Abercrombie said it never felt "in sync" on the court and that spelt a difficult night for the home side.

"They slowed it down a lot and we struggled to get any continuity on the offensive end. I guess we're used to running things a certain way and we didn't adjust well enough on the fly to how they mixed up their defence."

With former Breaker Oscar Forman drilling all three of his looks from beyond the arc, the Hawks took a deserved five-point lead into the major break, after trailing 21-24 at the end of the first period.

It was unconvincing stuff from the Kiwi club as they lacked the energy and efficiency they'd brought to the first half last week against the Adelaide 36ers. Making just 14 of 39 shots through the first 20 minutes didn't help the cause much either, and nor did some pretty ordinary defending close to the hoop.

It threatened to rather get away on the Breakers in the third quarter when the Hawks' lead ballooned to 11 as the visitors knocked in a succession of pretty open jump shots, and Jackson appeared to reinjure that tender ankle. But another fast finish - with the point guard shaking off his pain -- got the hosts back to within five heading into the final period.

But the run the 3300-strong crowd hoped for never came, and instead it was the Hawks who eased out to a comfortable victory, and the Breakers who were devoid of answers down the stretch.

But as someone noted, things didn't work out so bad last season on the back of that early Hawks wakeup call. A similar response is now called for.

 

Wollongong Hawks 81 (Rhys Martin 20, Joevan Catron 10),

NZ Breakers 63 ( CJ Bruton 10).

1Q: 24-21; HT: 36-41; 3Q: 53-58.