The newly crowned Australian basketball league champions the New Zealand Breakers may have a few imports in their ranks but their coach insists they need a lot of New Zealanders in the team to be successful.
Andrej Lemanis is Australian and three of his team's top players CJ Bruton, Gary Wilkinson and Kevin Braswell are from Australia and the USA, but Lemanis says his New Zealanders were crucial in this title run.
Lemanis says there's something special about the synergy in his side that you can't get by just throwing bunches of people together and there's a certain mana about New Zealanders doing it for each other, which is special to see from the outside, is fun to be a part of and is ultimately good for Kiwi basketball.
On Friday night the Breakers became the first New Zealand side to win a senior Australian competition with their 18-point win over the Cairns Taipans in grand final game three in Auckland.
