Former NZ Breakers coach Dean Vickerman could only stare down the court in begrudged admiration as his former team piled an Australian NBL masterclass onto his current outfit, Melbourne United.

Less than 48 hours after dispatching Adelaide 36ers at Spark Arena, the Auckland club appeared almost unbelievably energised for the top-of-the-table clash across the Tasman, as they kicked off a what amounts to a five-week, seven-game road swing that includes 'home' fixtures at Christchurch and Wellington along the way.

This comes after a torrid opening month that saw them interrupt their league campaign for a three-game NBA swing through the United States.

The Breakers have always used their travel schedule and underdog status has a unifying influence, and no-one understands this better than Vickerman, who spent six seasons as Breakers assistant, before taking the reins for three more.

During that tenure, he helped guide them to five finals in six years, including four championship titles — three under head coach Andrej Lemanis and one of his own.

"The Covid years were really tough for them as a club, but they've started to bounce back," he reflected. "Obviously, with eight or nine teams or whatever it was back then, being one team from another country, you feel the weight of things a little bit against you and the travel you have to go through.

"It was always a bind for us to say, when you get on the road, the detail you have to go through to be successful on a road trip... when I was over there, we really bought into that.

"They played two days ago, and they looked pretty fresh and fit, and pretty locked in. Credit to the coach, they're doing a good job."

Their latest 113-79 performance fell just short of Melbourne's biggest-ever defeat. Ironically, the Vickerman-coached Breakers inflicted a 37-point loss in 2016.

Under former Finnish international Peterri Koponen, this version — almost a completely new roster and coaching staff to start of the season — has quickly gelled to sit atop the standings with a 6-2 record.

American guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright looks like a Most Valuable Player candidate again, after going close last season, but he has found plenty of support from his new teammates. After playing his rookie season with Cairns Taipans, Kiwi centre Sam Mennenga achieved a career-high 25 points to lead the Breakers over Melbourne.

Vickerman thought he had a gameplan and a line-up to undo their promising start, but he was wrong.

"Credit to them," he conceded. "They're sitting on top of the ladder, they're playing great basketball and we didn't have answers at all tonight.

"Offensively, we thought we had a plan with Cartwright, but it wasn't good enough... he was great. Mennenga has had some games against us where he's been really good and I thought that pick-and-roll with those two early in the game, we didn't get our coverages right, and we were a little scared and didn't trust what we wanted to do.

"We've been great all year doing what we wanted to do and guarding the paint, we've been one of the best in the league, but you look along this boxscore, and see 66% from the field, 70% in the paint and 60% from three... we were just really bad defensively and that doesn't allow us to play at the pace we want to play at the offensive end.

"They gave us an absolute lesson in how to screen tonight. They were really good at it and super-disciplined in how they played."

After dispatching last season's runners-up in such convincing fashion, the Breakers now head across the Bass Strait, where defending champions Tasmania JackJumpers lie in wait at Hobart on Saturday.