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Regional | Auckland

Breakers talk Hawks game and Boroughs Project

Top of the table NZ Breakers prepare for their first home game of the new year as they take on 8th placed Wollongong Hawks tomorrow.

Going through the necessary paces in physical and mental preparation for the first home game of the year.

Power forward Mika Vukona says, “Every championship that we won we've had home court advantage, I think if you go down the history maybe only once in the last 5-10 years that the away team have won.”

“It’s a sacrifice the players make over the Christmas-New Year’s period, and we had a game on Boxing Day and travelled over on Christmas Day.  We missed a little family time, so it's great to be back on the North Shore,” says coach Dean Vickerman.

Coming off of a Player of the Round performance, Tai Wesley scored 23 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks, within 23 minutes.

Assistant coach Paul Henare says, “I recruited Tai to the Southland Sharks in the NZ league and obviously that was the connection to get him here.”

“It's been something that's been gradually, well happening all season, and that game there he just exploded,” says Vukona.

Tai Wesley says, “My defence needs to be better, I need to be stronger on the block, secure more defensive rebounds, I only had 4 out of my 8, so definitely defence.”

New Zealand basketball superstar Steven Adams has put his sport behind the 'Boroughs Project', the project aims to bring the culture of pick-up basketball from world-famous courts in the US to the suburbs of Auckland.

Henare says, “Anything that markets the sport of basketball and gets more people playing and more people involved and greater exposure for Basketball New Zealand is a great thing.”

Vukona says, “You got these courts and then you get the sister courts over in New York and across America, and when you got names like Rucker Park associated with New Zealand, it's a massive thing.”

The Breakers take on the Wollongong Hawks this Thursday at the North Shore Event Centre.