NBL Elimination Playoff

Cairns v New Zealand

The 3 regular season meetings between these two teams resulted in the away team prevailing every time, with the Taipans winning twice.  Through midseason import changes and various injuries, the makeup of both teams tonight will be vastly different to those that took the court during the regular season series.  The Taipans will still be without defensive specialist Aaron Grabau (bulging disc in back) whilst the Breakers are expected to field a full strength side. 

With a squad that is missing Grabau and could very well be without Darnell Mee (who is battling a virus, I have not received any mail regarding his status, I do know that he has missed the past 3 games), the Taipans still have one of the deepest teams in the league.  The key to their success tonight will be sharing the ball and being patient enough to find the mismatches on the floor and take advantage of them.  Whether this will be the likes of Stephen Black or Jared Newson taking advantage of the poor perimeter defenders (import Orien Greene excluded) when they are in front of them or Nathan Jawai doing damage inside along with finding the open shooters, the opportunities will be there for the Taipans.

The thing that the Breakers will require most here is some support for Kirk Penney on offence.  He is without a doubt one of the most consistent performers in the league.  If Phill Jones or Oscar Foreman can hit some shots, if Tony Ronaldson or import Derrick Alston can provide a solid inside presence, if Mika Vukona can get some cheap baskets through his hustle and Greene can wreak some havoc with his penetration, Penney will be able to get his numbers with high efficiency which will give the Breakers a decent shot at victory here.  Penney has not received very much support in away games all season which will make it tough for the playoff debutantes if this occurs tonight.

I thought that the Taipans were too short here until I heard that Breakers Coach Andrej Lemanis took his side from Perth last Saturday back to New Zealand instead of remaining in the country.  They arrived in Cairns yesterday.  Paul Henare said that his team will treat this game as a ‘normal road trip’ (why you would want to do this when your team went 5-10 on the road during the season is beyond me).  The Breakers will play hard but I believe that the travel will catch up to them and that the Taipans will pull away in front of their home fans.  All of this seems to be accurately reflected in the line betting to me.  The points total looks a touch too high to me.  In the 3 regular season meetings the average was 203 points (with the total in round 10 reaching 231).  Overall on the season the Taipans average 99 points per game at home and the Breakers average 96 points away from home.  Greene has said that they will come out and be physical on defence and given that it is a playoff game, I would expect the Taipans to do the same which tells me that a play on the unders is value.

Under 195.5 at $1.90 (Sportingbet, Sportsbook)  - 1 unit