The Breakers say they're committed to out-of-sorts import Awvee Storey despite his continuing struggles in the Australian NBL.

It was one of the notable features of the New Zealand's club's slump-busting 79-74 victory over the Melbourne Tigers at the NSEC on Thursday night - when push came to shove and the Breakers needed to haul in a 14-point deficit the former NBA player was riding the pine...

Storey was pulled from the game midway through the third quarter, during which the Breakers trailed the Tigers by as many as 14 points, and he never re-entered the fray thereafter as the CJ Bruton-inspired comeback hauled the Aussies in and saw them beaten with a degree of comfort.

The win took the Breakers to 2-2 for the new season and ended a five-game losing streak at the hands of the Tigers - but many of the nearly 4000-strong crowd who packed the NSEC that night left the venue wondering about the future of the three-year NBA forward Storey.

He went one-of-six for the night, had two points and four boards in just over 15 minutes on court. Not really the sort of contribution you want from your highly paid import.

But all the noise afterwards was in support of Storey, including from his senior team-mates who continue to rally round their out-of-sorts forward. Storey is averaging 6.7ppg and 5.7rpg in his four matches thus far, and has started them all.

But on Thursday night he was asked to move from power forward to small forward in a late reshuffle caused by Kirk Penney's back injury, and the Breakers are prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt over that.

It's not uncommon for imports to be jettisoned if they don't meet promised standards, and already the Gold Coast Blaze have replaced former Canterbury Rams player Michael Joiner after just a couple of games.

But there's no indications that the Breakers have reached that stage with a player who clearly has the athletic talent to be a player in this league.

"He's a big part of our team this year," said 22-season NBL veteran Tony Ronaldson. "We need to have something extra to get to a championship level. In the space of two days he's moved from mainly playing the four spot to now playing mainly three, and the way we run it's totally different. As we progress and he gets it down more I'm sure he'll play more."

Lemanis said Penney's injury had forced Storey's positional move earlier than he'd wanted, and on barely an hour's preparation it had proved slightly problematic.

"Had he knocked down a couple of shots you could have said he played great, but he still helped us on defence. He's now got another week and he'll be better in that spot. From a coach's perspective we found a group and found that flow offensively we haven't had the last two games... that comes if all five guys are on the same page, and obviously Awvee can't be expected to be on that page right now."