An all-round team performance has seen the NZ Breakers beat the South East Melbourne Phoenix to claim their second straight ANBL win on Saturday.
Five Breakers players scored in the double digits, as the NZ-based club claimed a 85-77 victory at John Cain Arena.
Veteran centre Rob Loe led the way with 18 points, while Izayah Le'afa came back to haunt his former team with a double-double, with 14 points and a career-high 10 assists.
Jarrell Brantley, Will McDowell-White and Rayan Rupert all chipped in with 10 or more points, and were all equally impressive on defence.
The Breakers overcame poor second half shooting from behind the three-point line to jump to a 16-point lead at one point.
They will be encouraged by the victory without the services of import guard Barry Brown Jr, Cam Gliddon and Tom Abercrombie.
Breakers coach Mody Maor was delighted with his team's performance in the trio's absence.
"Just 10 or 15 minutes before the game, you could sense in the locker room that the guys believe," he said.
"That doesn't matter that we are missing players with Cam not playing and Barry not playing, they didn't think about those excuses at all," Maor said.
"They were locked in on the game. This was the first time we've had a lead like that late in a game and it was interesting how they responded.
"We are lacking two of our main veterans in Cam and Tom so these are kind of the settling forces in this group, but there's a lot of character in there.
"For us when things get shaky it gets down to defence and rebounding. When we do that well we can hang with any team in the league."
NZ Breakers 85 (Loe 18, Le'afa 14, Brantley 13)
SEM Phoenix 77 (Creek 20, Adnam 17, Broekhoff 11)
