Izayah Le'Afa of the Breakers. Photo: Photosport
The Breakers shook off a run poor NBL form and the ejection of coach Mody Maor to beat the Adelaide 36ers 96-83 in Auckland on Thursday night.
A sizzling first quarter set the foundation for a relieving victory for the injury-hit home side, who had lost three of their four previous games to drop to the bottom of the standings.
Ahead 37-17 after the opening stanza, the Breakers struggled to retain that momentum but did enough to notch a fourth win to climb off the bottom, past Illawarra and Adelaide.
Their cause wasn't helped by the ejection of Maor, who was handed two technical fouls after a drawn-out argument with officials after the halftime buzzer had sounded - disputing the heavy foul count against his team.
Assistant coach Daniel Sokolovsky took charge in the second half as the Breakers increased their halftime lead of 53-41 to 77-60 heading into the final quarter.
Anthony Lamb (24 points), Izayah Le'afa and Parker Jackson-Cartwright (both 21) led the scoring for the Breakers, who are away to the South East Melbourne Phoenix on Saturday.
You can look back at RNZ's live commentary of the game here.
