{"id":198394,"date":"2025-10-08T18:26:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T18:26:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/198394\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T18:26:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T18:26:09","slug":"assist-record-falls-as-breakers-light-up-ignite-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/198394\/","title":{"rendered":"Assist record falls as Breakers light up Ignite Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Zealand Breakers have lit up the inaugural Ignite Cup, thumping the Illawarra Hawks by 29 points to leave the reigning champions’ title defence in tatters.<\/p>\n

Parker Jackson-Cartwright set a new assist record as the Breakers posted their first win in the NBL 40-minute era, thrashing the Hawks 117-88.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n

1 Related<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Diminutive import Jackson-Cartwright paired 17 assists with 20 points at Auckland’s Spark Arena on Wednesday, while Sam Mennenga (18) and Karim Lopez (16) as the Breakers (1-4) claimed the inaugural fixture of the competition.<\/p>\n

The previous individual assist record in the current era was 15, jointly held by Melbourne’s Nate Tomlinson in 2013 and Cairns’ Tahjere McCall in 2023. The NBL’s all-time record is 24 by Derek Rucker for Newcastle in 1994, when games went for 48 minutes. <\/p>\n

NZ won each quarter, giving them the perfect start to the league’s new in-season tournament, which has a quarter-by-quarter scoring system and a total prize pool of $400,000. Tyler Harvey (22 points) and JaVale McGee (19) led the charge for the struggling Hawks (0-3).<\/p>\n

“It’s something I’ve been waiting for,” Breakers coach Petteri Koponen said.<\/p>\n

“Just proud and happy. It was really enjoyable basketball.<\/p>\n

Parker Jackson-Cartwright holds the new assist record.\u00a0Photo by Phil Walter\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

“(It’s) not every day we’re going to shoot this well but this is the identity we’ve been looking for.”<\/p>\n

NZ were on song from the outset, taking advantage of Illawarra’s porous defence and plethora of turnovers to open a 30-24 quarter-time lead.<\/p>\n

Mennenga buried three triples in the second term as the Breakers knocked down seven of their first 10 from long range to steam ahead 53-38.<\/p>\n

McGee spearheaded an 11-0 Hawks burst to trim the gap to four points, but the big fella’s brain-fade with 0.7 seconds remaining in the half – an unsportsmanlike foul as he grabbed Rob Loe and tossed him aside – cost the visitors.<\/p>\n

Harvey’s last-second bucket was overturned and Loe nailed two free throws at the other end to close the half.<\/p>\n

Jackson-Cartwright hit a foul shot in the third term to make it an 8-0 run for 61-49, after fired-up Illawarra coach Justin Tatum was handed a technical foul as the teams headed to the locker rooms.<\/p>\n

NZ won the third period 27-23 before blowing the Hawks away 30-16 in the fourth.<\/p>\n

The Breakers unleashed a 17-0 spree down the stretch, capped by Mennenga’s vicious left-handed tomahawk off Jackson-Cartwright’s 17th assist.<\/p>\n

“New Zealand shot the ball well,” Tatum said. “They shot way better than they did in their first four games.<\/p>\n

“That’s going to kill any team. My guys are figuring it out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Zealand Breakers have lit up the inaugural Ignite Cup, thumping the Illawarra Hawks by 29 points…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-198394","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}