Once the Pasadena Slam arrived in the Sports Pavilion 35-minutes after the game’s scheduled start time, the Breakers made them wish they had not made the trip, dominating their outmatched opponent for 48 minutes on the way to a 128-95 win.
Coming off their second loss of the season the against the Newport Surf on Tuesday, the Breakers returned to Santa Barbara to face the Pasadena Slam – a team they beat 159-104 earlier in the season.
Pasadena opened the game with only five players, all of which were perimeter players. The Breakers capitalized on the Slams player shortage, jumping out to a 17-2 lead with 6:23 remaining in the first quarter, prompting a Pasadena timeout.
The Slam’s two big men, 6-7 Taron Williams and 7-2 Mike Boone, arrived during the timeout and bulstered the Slam’a front line, but their presence did not slow down the Breakers as they held a 29-12 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Breakers coach Curt Pickering opted to go with two units rather than mixing in starters with reserve players. The second unit got about the same amount of minutes as the starters and was highlighted by strong play from Mark Dawson and Justin Harris.
“We just play hard and try to win every game,” Dawson Said. “Hopefully it will all come together in the end.”
Harris was magnificient in his second game with the Breakers, pouring in 27-points while playing with the energetic second group.
“He played Tuesday night and he did not play well so he needed a game like this to kind of fine tune his shooting and ability to contribute,” Pickering said.
Santa Barbara expanded its lead in the second quarter, getting contributions from all 10 of its active players. Leonard Mosley’s three-pointer at the buzzer gave the Breakers a 57-34 halftime lead.
The second half was more of the same as Tim Taylor got into a good shooting rhythm to help the Breakers maintain their large lead. Taylor’s brother Tom was playing for the Slam and the two siblings competed hard against each other the entire game.
“It’s always fun playing against my brother,” Tim said. “Growing up we always played on the same team, but playing against each other is that much better, it’s a lot of fun.”
The fourth quarter was a glorified layup drill for the Breakers, as they practiced different alley-oop combinations on their overwhelmed opponent. Mark Dawson threw down two thunderous dunks in the final minutes that sent the crowd into a frenzy.
“The crowd likes the dunks so we wanted to show them what we could do, how high we could jump and how much fun we were having,” Dawson said.
Pickering didn’t feel like the blowout win over the slam was a good barometer of how the team was playing.
“This game was probably not a real test,” Pickering said. “At least we didn’t have to over exert ourselves since we have to play back to back.”
The Breakers next home game is at 7 p.m. Saturday May 23 against the Ventura County Jets.
