Round 13 in NBL25 begins on Friday night with a double-header for fans and punters to dive into. The first game of the night tips off in New Zealand at 5:30pm (AEDT), with the struggling Breakers set to play host to the star-studded Kings. We have you covered with a full preview and tip for the game below!
Also, we’re providing previews and expert betting tips for every game of the NBL25 season, so make sure to head over to our NBL Tips page regularly to keep up to date with all of our content.
NBL25 Round 13 Preview & Betting Tips
New Zealand Breakers vs Sydney Kings
Friday 5:30pm AEDT (Dec 20), Spark Arena
The New Zealand Breakers rotten run of form continued in Round 12 where they lost both of their games convincingly. That’s now six straight losses since starting the season 7-3, and all six have been by 11+ points. In fact, their average losing margin during this current stretch is 22 points, which ranks among the worst six-game stretches we’ve seen from a team in recent NBL history.
It’s tough to pinpoint exactly where things have gone so horribly wrong for the Breakers, although it might be of no coincidence that they’ve gone downhill since releasing Freddie Gillespie. He was by far their best defensive big man and while his replacement in Tacko Fall clearly offers terrific rim protection as well, he’s a complete liability in all other facets of defence.
The good news for the Breakers is Jonah Bolden made a successful return from injury last weekend and he can add some paint protection, although the Breakers will need a lot more than a slight uptick in defence to get out of this rut.
The Sydney Kings are starting to find their best form in NBL25 and are coming off one of their better wins of the season in Round 12. They knocked off the scorching-hot Bullets at home by 12 points, and it was their effort and efficiency on the defensive end that got the job done as they held the best shooting team to just 27 points in the second half.
That’s now back-to-back wins and five victories from their past seven games for the Kings, which also mirrors the record they amassed in their first seven games of the season – a start that had them labelled as clear championship favourites. And as a result of recent form, the Kings are in third spot in the standings and are just two games off top spot.
The Kings are also starting to get healthy and have just two players currently listed on the official NBL injury report. Jaylin Galloway’s shoulder injury ruled him out of the season a couple of weeks ago, while Bul Kuol’s return date from knee soreness continues to be listed as ‘TBC’.
Game Prediction: One of the heavy losses during this six-game losing stretch for the Breakers was dealt to them by the Kings, which came in their Round 11 meeting at TSB Arena in New Zealand. The Kings were 15-point winners on the night and have only improved since then, while the Breakers have shown no sign of improvement.
One would think the Breakers simply have to show some sort of fighting spirit/improvement in the not-so-distant future, but it’s anyone’s guess as to when that might happen. Until then, the safe play continues to be to back against them to lose easily, which means taking the Kings at the -7.5 line in this one.
Kings -7.5
$1.91 (1 Unit)
