I’m Gunna Break Your Face

I’m Gunna Break Your Face

After the last incident regarding a certain Gus Gawn (Sports Editor and world renowned yonker) and the NZ Breakers, the powers that be at Critic decided to send their most popular reporter to the preseason game against the Wollongong Hawks. The Critic security team signed off on this straight away, saying “the likelihood of Greg Hall getting abused in such a way that Gus Gawn was is highly unlikely, as Mr Hall is probably the nicest and most favourably regarded character we have ever met.”

A sellout crowd at the Lion Foundation Arena saw the place pumping to chants of DE-FENCE and other cliché basketball bombinates. The actual attendance is unknown, but I looked around and it was more than I could count in my head. Also, the people kept moving around, which made it even more difficult.

At the end of the first half, the Breakers were down by 7 points to the side from “The Gong”, mostly down to the 100% shooting of Hawks Number 10 Larry Davidson (no relation to Harley, I asked). Not only was his shooting impeccable, he had a lovely beard and was sporting a skull bandeezy, which made him my favourite. Halftime saw the emergence of the Promosports cheerleaders. One claimed to be the girlfriend of one of the other guys at the media table, though I am not sure if this is true as I saw him giving the eye to Tom Abercrombie.

It was a well-fought affair throughout. In the second quarter, CJ Bruton went down like he got shot by a sniper in the rafters. Rumours flew around the arena that he was auditioning for a future rendition of Hamlet, but these were soon quashed as he didn’t take part in the remainder of the game. Bruton could be seen sitting on the bench upset, either because his sternum hurt or because Dillon Boucher said that “anyone who doesn’t watch Breaking Bad is an idiot”, and CJ does not watch Breaking Bad.


The game ended in dramatic fashion, with the Hawks holding on to a 64-61 victory, despite the Breakers having 2 possessions at the end but missing both 3-point attempts, leading to chants of “Bring back Pero”. I didn’t join in, as I know Mike Pero and he’s very happy with his mortgage company. Also, I’m not sure if he even played basketball, or that he’s good in the clutch. 

Paul Lawrence (RadioLive) wasn’t happy with the refereeing, stating: “They are having too much impact on the game, blowing their whistle every time the ball is contested.” He said more, but I stopped listening and drew a picture of a cat.

Mika Vukona was disappointed with the team’s performance. He said that even after the win in Christchurch there were still things that the team as a whole needed to improve on, but unfortunately they were not able to do that. Mika disagreed with Mr Lawrence, and when asked whether he thought the referees played a big part in the outcome of the game, he said, “Na never, it’s always the players, ya know. Players always get distracted by the referees. We needed to speed up our offence, and we didn’t get our defence going.” 

The NZ Breakers will be looking to top the NBL Championship again this season, starting with their first game on 5 October in Auckland.
This article first appeared in Issue 25, 2012.
Posted 4:25pm Sunday 23rd September 2012 by Greg Hall.