The New Zealand Breakers have poured more pain on the down-on-confidence, undermanned South East Melbourne Phoenix, dominating from start to finish in a 106-75 home NBL victory.
The Breakers were back home at Auckland's Spark Arena on Saturday evening needing to snap a three-game losing streak to stay in contention for a top-six position.
New Zealand had lost tight battles with top two teams Melbourne and Perth, but it was Sunday's 29-point loss to Sydney that left them needing the strong response.
South East Melbourne arrived on a four-game losing streak and without import big man Alan Williams, who is out for the season.
From the outset New Zealand were a team on a mission.
The Breakers were led by birthday boy Anthony Lamb, the former Golden State Warriors NBA forward celebrating his 26th birthday in style with 31 points on 11-of-14 field goal shooting.
New Zealand outscored the Phoenix by 36 points in the 31 minutes Lamb played.
Only three of those points came in the first quarter, with the Breakers scoring the opening 11 points of the game, and they never looked back.
New Zealand led 25-10 at quarter-time, with the Phoenix managing just 2-of-12 shooting with six turnovers.
To the credit of the Phoenix, they did keep fighting and got back within 15 by half-time despite the 15 points from Lamb.
The visitors even closed the gap to 14 by three-quarter-time, but things kept getting tougher.
Their two imports playing, Gary Browne (four points, four turnovers) and Abdel Nader (six points, 1-of-5 shooting), both had fouled out by early in the fourth quarter.
New Zealand took full advantage to end up winning by 31 to improve to 9-12 and be knocking on the door of the top six.
On top of what Lamb did, Mantas Rubstavicius had 15 points for the Breakers, Parker Jackson-Cartwright 13 points, seven assists and four steals, and Will McDowell-White 13 points and seven assists as they shot 57 per cent from the field.
Breakers coach Mody Maor liked his team's mindset from the beginning.
"They went about their business the same with full commitment, effort, intensity and belief even after those losses," he said.
"I'm very proud of them and when you start off the game holding them to 10 points in the first quarter then it's a very good sign."
The Phoenix slip further from the top six at 9-14, having lost eight of the past nine games by an average of 25.3 points.
Mitch Creek battled hard again for 27 points, seven rebounds and three steals.
Gorjok Gak added 13 points as the starting centre.
Coach Mike Kelly is trying to stay positive, but it's not easy.
"I'm definitely a glass-half-full type of guy and I'm struggling, but the second and third quarters the guys did fight," he said.
"And I mean, the guys fought the whole time, we didn’t always play smart though."
