Illawarra Hawks' Tyler Harvey and NZ Breakers Parker Jackson-Cartwright will face off in the Ignite Cup. Photo: Photosport
The NBL's two winless teams will tip-off the basketball competition's newest innovation in Auckland on Wednesday.
The New Zealand Breakers host the defending champion Illawarra Hawks in the first game of an in-season tournament, the Ignite Cup.
Each team plays four Wednesday night Ignite Cup games across the NBL season. Cup wins also count towards the regular season standings but a new quarter-by-quarter scoring system will keep a separate Ignite Cup ladder, culminating in a standalone Cup final.
The Ignite Cup champions take home $300,000, while the runners-up will get $100,000. Sixty percent of the prize money will go directly to players.
The Breakers and the Hawks are yet to win a regular season NBL game, with the Auckland-based club having lost all four games by double-digits and the Hawks losing both games played so far by less than eight points.
A win in the Ignite Cup opener at Spark Arena could be a turning point for either team.
Breakers coach Petteri Koponen said "many things" had gone wrong to start the season but "it's not all dark".
"There is not one problem that's holding us back, there is many, many things, both offensively, defensively, but I think the easiest thing is to fix the defensive things, the effort, the one on ones, we need to get some pride in this team."
Koponen's roster was taking time to gel and as their shooting statistics plummeted the coach said he could see players start to turn down shots and start to hesitate when they were open.
As the losses accumulated Koponen was aware the impact that could have on the playing group.
"It affects your shooting, effects mentally and the collective confidence of the group. But there are no magic tricks and we try to keep the confidence.
"We're not that far away but we just need everybody to click."
A 40-minute performance was what Koponen was waiting for.
"We have some units out there, we might have four players, but it's been hard to find the five players, same time on the court who could do the work what is necessary and that's what we're looking for, and that's the next step.
"If you want to win these games, you have to want to do the dirty work. Sometimes, in offense, it's not your day sometimes defense takes takes you out of the game at the offensive end but it can't affect your effort on defense and [they] just need to be there and compete all 40 minutes."
Breakers forward Sam Mennenga wants twam to "pick it up in all aspects of the game" ahead of busy home stretch of games. Photo: photosport
Forward Sam Mennenga was not pushing the panic button yet either.
"You could try and generate as many excuses as you want but I don't think there is much to excuse, I think we just need to pick it up in all aspects of the game and the beauty of that is that there is a lot to work on, so there is a lot of room for improvement."
Mennenga said players could not drop their heads if results were not going their way on the court.
"I think if you lose you can lose fighting we haven't done that yet and if you lose you have to lose knowing you gave it your all some of that body language comes from that and I think that's something we need to tidy up and something that if everyone can piece that together then we can start building each other up and start winning more games."
The Breakers have a run of four games in 11 days, including three at home, and Koponen stopped short of calling the stint season-defining.
"This league is a short season... everything going fast, so you don't have time to waste and you have to be ready to fight in every game.
"The games are starting to pile up and we need to be ready to go. There is not too much time to practice [they need to] find the confidence for the shooting in the gym, when you're taking extra shots, extra work and when you go in the game, you know you did everything that you could."
Koponen said the first Ignite Cup game, with the additional competition points on offer, would not change the team's approach.
"We tried to win every quarter anyway. So every possession is important, every game, every quarter. So it doesn't change too much. It's just we go there, we execute and we compete for 40 minutes."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
