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Scores updated regularly. REFRESH NOW
Melbourne United vs New Zealand Breakers |
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|---|---|---|
2018 NBL Finals Series |
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| Hisense Arena, Melbourne | ||
| Melbourne United | New Zealand Breakers | |
| 88 | SCORE | 77 |
| 21 | Q1 | 24 |
| 22 | Q2 | 19 |
| 24 | Q3 | 18 |
| 21 | Q4 | 16 |
Melbourne United play host to the New Zealand Breakers in the first game of the NBL finals, join The Roar from 5:35pm AEDT Saturday for live scores updates and a blog.
Melbourne United finished the season strongly to grab top spot and with it home court advantage for the finals series. New Zealand played well throughout the season but fell off towards the end but did more than enough to get the fourth spot on the table.
Both teams have a good solid mix of veterans and impressive imports, despite Melbourne finishing on top and having home court advantage the Kiwis are not to be counted out, these two teams match up quite well with one another and the series could go all the way to a third game.
Melbourne and New Zealand have both had players representing their country in the World Cup qualifiers, with the New Zealand players get the unlucky draw of having to play away from home, whether that extra travel will hurt them in game one we will have to see. The Melbourne players got the luxury of staying home for their games so they should be a lot more fresh.
Two years ago both of these teams faced off against one another and the Melbourne squad had finished the season on top, however it was the underdog Breakers who took the series away from Melbourne and moved onto the finals. The United team won’t want to see a repeat of that series.
In that series two years ago New Zealand’s veteran leader Mika Vukona was impressive and if the United team want to get their revenge he will be the key player to stop. The key question though for New Zealand is who will stop Casper Ware, Ware has put up almost MVP like numbers for United and will look to lead from the front and possibly try to strengthen his case to make a return to the NBA or European basketball.
Prediction
The winner of this game will be decided by who can set the tone early, if Melbourne can control the rebounds and get their hot shooting players firing early then New Zealand may struggle. The Breakers side though is talented and have been a mainstay of the NBL finals for a few years now, they can match it with the Melbourne side in most key areas, New Zealand plays a much more physical style of basketball and in the playoffs that is just what you need to set the tones.
The added travel for the New Zealand side will hurt them in this first game and a much less travel weary Melbourne side will strike the first blow in the best of three series.
Melbourne by 6 points.
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