'Basketball is weird': Rookie coach rides Breakers rollercoaster

Considering the competitive hole his team has fallen into over recent weeks, NZ Breakers coach Petteri Koponen is surprisingly upbeat.

With Christmas around the corner, his family are due in Auckland this week, just in time to attend their first home game against Sydney Kings at Spark Arena.

"It's been a long four months and I'm happy they're finally going to make it here," he beams. "They actually land in the middle of the day and some of them, I hope, will come to the game, if they're not too tired.

"[It's] not a short flight from Finland to New Zealand, but finally they are here and they have a chance to see this beautiful country."

Koponen hopes they bring a change of fortunes to his slumping outfit, who were atop the Aussie NBL a month ago, but have plummeted down the standings with six straight defeats.

Coaches often talk about the rollercoaster ride through a season, trying to keep highs not too high and lows not too low — but this particular one has already dished out both much steeper than he would have liked. From a winless pre-season to the league lead and back to the depths of defeat, the former Finnish international player is getting a torrid baptism in his first stint as a professional head coach.

"Let's say I've been better," he told 1News. "It's been tough for a few weeks and, as a coach, you always try to think what we can do more, how we can help the guys.

"You can go crazy and, in the end, it's not about 'Xs and Os'. It's just collectively doing those little things much better.

"As coaches, you go overthinking, but at the end of the day, you don't have time."

After enjoying success over two seasons under previous coach Mody Maor, narrowly missing out on a fifth ANBL crown in 2023, the Breakers completely rebuilt their staff and roster this season, bringing back only American guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Aussie centre Dane Pineau from the playing group.

Rookie coach Koponen, 36, brought a reputation as a tough and cerebral performer during his playing days, but was probably employed more on potential than credentials.

"I think we surprised everyone," he reflects. "We had a great group of guys who were every day coming to the gym, working together, trying to build a chemistry and trying to build out habits.

"The pre-season was tough, but we coaches always saw improvements every day. The trickiest part with a team sport is you can have the best players in the world, but you never know how the team performs.

"When we were playing Sydney away, I felt like something clicked... we made good decisions, passing the ball, everyone contributing. Collective confidence goes up and everything becomes much easier."

That feeling has all but gone now. During a two-week hiatus for national team duties, the Breakers replaced American centre Freddie Gillespie with towering 2.29m (7ft 6in) Sengalese Tacko Fall, an NBA fan favourite with obvious strengths and just-as-obvious weaknesses.

"Basketball is weird," said Koponen. "You can play so many different ways and Tacko is obviously a different player to Freddie.

"Overall, I think Tacko might be a better player than Freddie, but it's a totally different style and getting adjusted to that as a group has been a challenge so far.

"As a coach, when you look at players and look at the team, you try to think of the best way to use them... how we can get the best out of these guys. That's the challenge with the schedule."

With Gillespie, the Breakers defence surrendered just 89 points a game, but that has ballooned out to 106 points since his departure. Fall may be a tremendous presence around the basket at both ends of the floor, but his lack of mobility means his teammates must completely change the way they play to accommodate him, without the luxury of time to perfect that adjustment.

"We need to implement Tacko into the team, we need to change our defence, with more responsibility for the guards to fight over ball screens and contest pull-up shots," explains Koponen. "Every defence, you give up something.

"Before, our big guys were stopping the ball on the screens, we were helping from the weak side and we were rotating. Now, we are the opposite way and that's the challenge."

On offence, Gillespie was happy to play within the system, picking up rebounds, converting putbacks and hitting mid-range jumpers as the opportunities fell to him. Fall can be much more of an attacking weapon, but he takes time to battle for position under the basket, which slows down a system that was once zinging.

"There is no better or worse things in basketball, just different, and that is the challenge with no practice time and building new habits as a group," said Koponen.

Now, the battle has become as much mental as physical.

"When you lose some games, collectively, the confidence goes down," said Koponen. "We are still getting great shots on offence, Tacko is doing better and better day by day, but that collective confidence is now the challenging part.

"We are missing wide open shots as a result. We keep showing the guys we are getting everything we did before, we just need to believe.

"Just do those little things every day, and that's the recipe to get the win and get our confidence back."