Parker Jackson-Cartwright is capable of doing plenty for the New Zealand Breakers, but coach Gordon Herbert knows for them to be successful this NBL season they need to give him more help and to get better when the ball's not in his hands.

Herbert was already well aware of Jackson-Cartwright's capabilities when he took on the job as Breakers coach for NBL27 having seen him in Germany when he was coaching the national team and the superstar point guard was playing at Baskets Bonn.

And Herbert couldn’t have asked for more from Jackson-Cartwright over the first three games of NBL27, including on Saturday night in Perth, where he had 30 points, eight assists, four rebounds and three steals while playing 35 minutes.

He gave the Breakers a chance for a second win of the season before the eventual four-point defeat, but upon reflection, Herbert knows that for his team to go anywhere in NBL27, they need to get better at giving him help and playing with the ball not in his hands.

"The performance was better than a few days ago and I thought we had a couple of good days of practice, but we're still learning how to play basketball," Herbert said.

"Our compete level's good but the basketball part needs to get a lot better. I thought Parker was outstanding, but he has to do everything and we need another ball handler, I think that's evident."

Herbert is still figuring out where that help for Jackson-Cartwright needs to come from and not having Josiah-Jordan James with a hamstring injury right now isn’t helping.

That leaves the Breakers with just the two imports and on Saturday night in Perth, Mojave King stepped up for 18 points with 4/5 three-point shooting and Carlin Davison added 15 points on 7/10 shooting.

But DJ Vasiljevic had a rough night with two points on 0/8 shooting and even though Izayah Le'Afa didn’t score or have any meaningful stats, the Breakers were +13 in his 10 minutes.

"We've worked on stuff for when he doesn’t have the ball to initiate the offence, we're just not very good at it right now. Obviously we have one import missing so we'll have to see what we do there," Herbert said.

"He was in Germany when I was there coaching the national team so I know him pretty well and he's a difference-maker.

"Defensively he's not bad either, it's just when you've got to play him 35, 38 minutes it's tough for him, but he gave 100 per cent and gave everything he had again."

Despite the eventual loss in Perth on Saturday night, there was a lot to like about the performance overall especially with the way they responded to a slow start.

Even with Sam Mennenga out with two early fouls, New Zealand went on a 15-0 run late in the first quarter and for a lot of the second and third terms, were on top including opening up an 11-point advantage at one point.

But in the end, there were similar problems that stood out to Herbert highlighted by giving up 19 offensive rebounds to the Wildcats who scored 16 second chance points as a result and allowing them to shoot 15/35 from behind the three-point line.

"There were some positives and I thought we controlled the tempo at different times, but we also gave up a lot of offensive rebounds again, and a lot of long rebounds," Herbert said.

"They shot threes and ran them down for offensive rebounds and we didn’t run them down. We made that 15-0 run and were running down the rebounds and kept them to one shot, but we didn’t do that for the whole game."

Herbert also mixed up his starting group to take on the Wildcats and went a little smaller putting Charles Bediako to the bench and going with Reuben Te Rangi along with starting King ahead of Le'Afa.

In the end, he never really got to see how going smaller worked because of Mennenga's two early fouls, but Bediako did have an especially effective first half and closed the game with eight points, three rebounds, two assists and two blocks in 22 minutes.

Most impressive was the punch that King and Davison provided to combine for 33 points, nine rebounds and five assists with 14/19 shooting which is something Herbert is looking forward to seeing more of.

"I thought Carlin, Mo and Charles gave us great minutes off the bench today, and I thought our bench was really, really good," Herbert said.

"I thought he (Bediako) was a lot better today and he had some really good minutes, it's just that they went really small late in the game and we had to switch, and couldn’t get him back in the game."

Chris Pike

Breakers need to give PJC more help