Back-to-back defeats have been born out of a lack of spark on offence, with the Breakers first giving Melbourne their maiden win and last night struggling to stay with pace-setters Cairns.
After scoring 90.5 points in their season-opening wins over Perth and Adelaide, the Breakers have been held to an average of 75 in their most recent fixtures.
It's an incredibly small sample size but the lack of output has seen their record fall to 2-2 ahead of Sunday's visit to Wollongong, leaving coach Dean Vickerman searching for solutions.
"To hold [Cairns] to 85 and not an unbelievable (shooting) percentage, either, I thought we were pretty solid defensively," Vickerman said of Thursday night's nine-point defeat. "It's our offence that really needs to click and get better.
"We were stagnant and weren't quite organised and...there are still a couple of areas we really need to work on."
Vickerman thought the Breakers were better in the fourth quarter, when they began to move the ball and get more players involved, but the damage was done. A 17-2 run from Cairns in the third period saw the Taipans move to 5-0 and saw the Breakers left figuring out what went wrong.
"We need to protect our home court," said Nigerian import Ekene Ibekwe. "With a team like that coming in undefeated, we should be ready for that.
"I know coach has a plan for us and we've just got to fix some things. We're going to watch video tomorrow and just go over what we should fix, and we're going to carry that on to Wollongong."
Both Ibekwe and Vickerman felt Cairns were the best team in the league at this early juncture, but that provided little consolation. Nor did the fact the player doing the damage is a bonafide NBA prospect.
Scottie Wilbekin was a stand-out guard during his college career at the University of Florida, leading the Gators to the NCAA Final Four in his senior season. Although he wasn't picked up in the two-round NBA Draft, he showed his credentials last night with 24 points and nine assists.
"Wilbekin's tough, he's quick, he made some pretty tough shots," Vickerman said. "They pretty much put the basketball in his hands in the second half."
By contrast, the Breakers' own outstanding American guard had a quiet night. After Cedric Jackson led all scorers to beat Perth and enjoyed another handy outing against Adelaide, he's been unable to take over the last two games in his normal manner.
There remains a sense the Breakers will fail to fire if Jackson does likewise, and there was nothing hot about his efforts at the NSEC. Jackson missed five straight free throws at one point and, part of a miserable 14-of-28 night on the line for the team, that was one obvious area for improvement.
"It's not a concern -- we've just got to be better," Vickerman said. "I'm happy that we're getting to the line -- I want us to get 21-25 free throws a game -- but we've got to get up to that 75 per cent mark as soon as we can. That's just rhythm and practise and something that we can fix."
- By Kris Shannon
