Heartland Hustle: Phoenix Road Trip to Bendigo to Take on Breakers

South East Melbourne Phoenix and New Zealand Breakers are both coming off tough losses to Melbourne United and Perth Wildcats respectively. Both sides will travel Bendigo in regional Victoria for Sunday's game.

Check out the latest on each team.

(It's been four months since the two sides have met.)

Key Details

NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 5 – 19 (10th) v SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE PHOENIX 12 – 12 (6th)
Where: Bendigo Basketball Stadium
When: Sunday April 10, 1pm AEST
Watch live and free on 10 Peach or Kayo Freebies 

The Teams

Phoenix

Phoenix will be without sharpshooter, Cam Gliddon again for Sunday’s game, with Gliddon missing due to a bout of gastro. Owen Foxwell will make the trip up with the team in Gliddon's place.

The side will remain without Ryan Broekhoff who is still recovering from a shoulder injury. Lachlan Barker is the nominated replacement player.

Breakers

The Breakers line up is unchanged.

Players to Watch

Zhou Qi v Yanni Wetzell

The Chinese superstar was dominant in the first quarter of Throwdown XVI doing whatever he wanted against Jo Lual-Acuil, as Shaq would say the United centre's defence was BBQ chicken for Zhou.

The Phoenix big man was a perfect 5/5 on the first quarter with 10 points, ending the night 17 points, 7 rebounds, and two blocks.

Wetzell has had a big year and Thursday night's game was no different, he dominated the paint against Perth stacking the stat sheet with 22 points and 10 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks, while shooting 10-15 shooting from the field.

This match up will go a long way to deciding the outcome of this game.

(Zhou is one to watch as he comes up against Wetzell in the paint.)

Last 5

Phoenix: LLWLL

Breakers: LLLLL

The Stats

Phoenix
Points: M Creek, 21.04ppg (#2 in NBL)
Rebounds: Q Zhou, 7rpg
Assists: X Munford, 3.81apg
Blocks: Q Zhou, 2.05bpg (#3 in NBL)
Steals: R Broekhoff, 1.56spg

Breakers
Points: Y Wetzell, 17.42ppg
Rebounds: Y Wetzell, 8rpg
Assists: P Siva, 4.89apg
Blocks: Y Wetzell, 1.05bpg
Steals: P Siva, 2.06 (#1 in NBL)

The History

Regular Season Head-to-Head: 7 – 3

South East Melbourne Phoenix – New Zealand Breakers

Last time out – Rd 2, NBL22

Phoenix 95 – Breakers 88

Phoenix
Creek 36p
Munford 17p
Adnam 16p

Breakers
Besson 26p
Delany 23p
Wetzell 18p

(The Phoenix need to bounce back and get a much needed win against New Zealand.)

Recap

The Phoenix has not faced the Breakers since round 2 in December. In their first two home games of the season the team from the Heartland registered back-to-back wins with Mitch Creek notching up 36 points on the back of six three-pointers in the Round 2 win.

Quotes

“We’ve got a lot to play for, we’ve not won more than one game for the past eight games now. We are in every one of them, yeah all of them we have been in, so for us there is clearly motivation to continue to get better, to try and arrest the issues that we face and move forward. This isn’t a situation where all is lost, we’ve thrown in the kit bag and said that’s enough, we are fighting our tails off at practice. And I thought we fought pretty hard tonight, but the underlining issues of giving up points from turnovers and giving up second chance points continue to harm us.”
- Phoenix head coach, Simon Mitchell on the run home

“Maybe we need a few less turnovers, pass up a few more shots and get to the paint some more, step up on the out of bounds a little bit less and walk with the ball a little bit less. But overall, we played a decent game, we executed, and we were good with a lot of the details. The attitude was correct, and I think it was a good basketball game. We gave it everything we had and that’s something that I hope we’ll do for the rest of the season in every game regardless of the result.”
- Breaker’s head coach, Dan Shamir after their loss to Perth Wildcats.

CLICK HERE for tickets to Phoenix's next home game.

Phoenix Media (9/4/22)