It had all the makings of a night for the Illawarra Hawks to get their NBL title defence back on track, but the New Zealand Breakers blew those plans apart with the biggest win of the season, 102-60.

The Breakers recorded their first road win of the season beating the Hawks by a season-high 42 points at the WIN Entertainment Centre on Friday night, with Illawarra's championship defence at a loose end.

The Hawks might have shot a paltry 32 per cent overall with 2-of-23 from deep, but the problems were much deeper for coach Justin Tatum.

"I first want to apologise to our fans and our members for the lack of effort that we gave today as a whole, and as a team," he said.

"We will definitely do better the next home game on Wednesday (against Melbourne) and I tip my hat off to New Zealand fo

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