![\"Sam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/sam-mennenga-of-the-breakers-lays-up-during-the-round-five-n-6GNUKP2EBJH6VBEWUF6X42IILQ.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe New Zealand Breakers have survived a furious late rally from the Sydney Kings to prevail 102-101 in a heart-stopping NBL Ignite Cup clash.<\/p>\n
The Breakers looked assured of a routine victory when they led by 13 points with less than two minutes left at Canberra’s AIS Arena on Wednesday night, before Kings import Torrey Craig went on a three-point shooting tear.<\/p>\n
He drilled three unanswered triples in the space of 40 seconds to slash NZ’s lead from 98-85 to 98-94.<\/p>\n
After a Xavier Cooks dunk, Craig drained yet another trey – his seventh for the game – to make it 101-99.<\/p>\n
He then tipped out a free throw from Breakers big man Sam Mennenga, but couldn’t quite bury an eighth three, his late miss tipped in by Tyler Robertson.<\/p>\n
Kiwi-born duo Mennenga (27 points, 13 rebounds) and makeshift point guard Carlin Davison (20 points, 14 assists) were enormous for NZ, still without injured superstar Parker Jackson-Cartwright.<\/p>\n
“It’s tough with Parker out, but a real positive thing is we’ve found another point guard,” Breakers coach Gordie Herbert said of Davison, after his team rose to fourth on the ladder.<\/p>\n
“We had a really good third quarter.<\/p>\n
“We got back into the game because I thought they had all the momentum going into halftime.”<\/p>\n
Craig (28 points), Makuach Maluach (19), Xavier Cooks (18) and Kendric Davis (17) did Sydney’s heavy lifting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sam Mennenga of the Breakers lays up during the round five NBL match between Sydney Kings and New Zealand Breakers. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n
By quarter-time, Mennenga already had 12 points, while Davison had hit two threes as NZ led 31-27.<\/p>\n
Maluach got off the chain in the second term, following back-back threes with a steal and lay-up to give the Kings the lead.<\/p>\n
He then dunked on Dejan Vasiljevic’s head, before hitting a runner on the halftime bell for a 61-51 buffer.<\/p>\n
The Kings’ offence spluttered badly in the third quarter as the Breakers, who had trailed 59-47 before halftime, dominated the quarter 24-12.<\/p>\n
Davison appeared to put the contest to bed when he engineered an 8-0 spree – a strong three-point play followed by slick assists for a King dunk and Reuben Te Rangi triple – which blew the Breakers’ cushion out to 98-85, before Craig’s whirlwind late assault.<\/p>\n
“The first quarter was tough, (then) we tightened up and played better in the second quarter,” Sydney coach Brian Goorjian said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know if it’s a weardown factor with playing the main group (for) a lot of minutes. When I went to the bench (after halftime), the line-ups were uncomfortable.”<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including the most divisive issues this election, and the country\u2019s best sausage. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Zealand Breakers have survived a furious late rally from the Sydney Kings to prevail 102-101 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3392,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-631223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-breakers","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}