Basketball On The Internet.

HATS off to Townsville last night. The Crocs were magnificent from start-to-finish. But New Zealand? Forget the haka, the Breakers served up kaka.

Not sure whether the announcement Dean Vickerman was stepping down as coach at season's end and Paul Henare would be the new head coach for 2016-17 and beyond had some impact, but it's hard to see why it should.

The Breakers still have 2015-16 to deal with and are locked in a tryst with Adelaide for that fourth spot in the playoffs.

They would have pencilled in the Crocs as a win but were never prepared for the ferocity and purpose of Shawn Dennis' young crew who had this virtually from the tip-off.

Clint Steindl was terrific again and Omar Samhan showed his threes against Adelaide were no fluke as the big man produced another double-double game with 16-12.

There again, the general lack of interest by the Breakers was something to behold. Vickerman described them as "soft" at halftime and bar a brief minute or two of third quarter desire, they maintained that for the duration.

Rarely has a reigning champion looked as feeble. For sure, credit the Crocs for a truly inspired and focused game.

But when a guy such as Corey Webster, who has led the NBL scoring most of the season, drops to second when Jerome Randle consolidates his lead with a 41-point game, an 11-point response at 33 percent is hardly what you'd expect. 

To say it was disappointing would be to understate that performance to the Nth degree. It resembled Perth at Cairns a while back. Maybe it's the weather.

WHEN Nate Jawai grabs a ball and hits a fadeaway baseline jumper, you could rightly believe you are in for a long night.

For Illawarra in Perth, where it last won when Haley's Comet passed over, it was a long second half as the Wildcats unleashed a 47-28 onslaught, Jermaine Beal alight in the last quarter to put icing on the 95-72 cake.

Jarrod Kenny's 3-point missile to close the third had some 13,000-plus fans in rapture, Illawarra unable to step up in the absence of leading scorer Kirk Penney (hamstring).

The win completed a 4-0 season-series sweep by the Wildcats and left the Hawks with a "hoodoo" team for the playoffs.

LAST TIME: Jerome Randle and Chris Goulding, two explosive shooters.

Tonight: IT'S on again, the 36ers hosting Melbourne in what should be a cracker at the new-look Titanium Security Arena. Perhaps an unforeseen problem for Adelaide is the fact Wednesday night's win against Sydney was hard going, not just because of the intensity of the Kings but because of the intensity of the humidity. It was one of those humid stinkers in Adelaide and today is scheduled to be much the same. How much THAT has taken out of the 36ers is hard to predict because otherwise we have the ingredients for a memorable showdown, names such as Randle, Goulding, Warrick, Johnson (depending on which version of him shows), Kickert, Gibson, Holt, Petrie etcetera making this a marquee matchup. I liked the Sixers for this on Wednesday but that might be more a heart tip than a head.

Last night: TOWNSVILLE CROCODILES 89 (Steindl 23, Samhan 16, Norton 14; Samhan 12 rebs; Norton 6 assts) d NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 66 (Wesley 13, Webster 12, Ce Jackson 11; Ch Jackson 7 rebs; Wesley, Vukona 3 assts) at The Swamp, Townsville Ent Centre; PERTH WILDCATS 95 (Beal 22, Prather 20, Jawai 18, Wagstaff 14; 3 with 6 rebs; Martin 6 assts) d ILLAWARRA HAWKS 72 (Forman 17, Coenraad 16, Lisch 14, Ogilvy 12; Lisch, Forman 6 rebs; Martin 4 assts) at The Jungle, Perth Arena.