When the game was there for the taking, the Melbourne Tigers crumbled and did nothing to stop Kirk Penney and the New Zealand Breakers running over the top, as the Tigers fell to an embarrassing 2-9 record after they were smacked in the final quarter and lost 90-80 - their fifth home loss of the season in six games.

Entering the final quarter, the scores tied at 64-64, the Tigers would've been confident of their chances, as the Breakers were on the backend of a road-double. But after being kept in check for the first three periods, Penney erupted for 16 of his game high 25 points in the final stanza to stab the Tigers with a barrage of long range bombs.

Breakers head coach Andre Lemanis described it as Penney finding his "groove", but as clutch and heroic as Penney was, the Tigers looked like the team that was playing the second of back-to-back games as they were out-hustled and out-rebounded throughout the final quarter by a Breakers team that wanted to do what it took to win the game more than the Tigers effort.

The Tigers were unable to sugar-coat the loss, despite playing very well through the first three quarters, when the game was on the line they failed to rise to the occasion and step up to the plate.

"It's frustrating," said Tigers guard Eric Devendorf post-game, the streaky scorer finishing with 17 points on 8/10 from the field with six rebounds. "But sometimes that's the way the ball rolls. In the fourth quarter they out-played us, out-hustled us."

The Tigers have let their season slip away and only a miracle will save them now. For the second season in a row, with an abundance of talent at their disposal, the Tigers are going to fail to make the playoffs.

The most frustrating part is that at times through the game the Tigers dominated, but while they worked so hard early to build an 11-point lead in the first quarter (17-6), they then became pedestrian on the defensive end and allowed the Breakers, through Kevin Braswell, to close the gap to two points. Then a Lucas Walker tip-in and Daryl Corletto buzzer beater pushed the lead out to seven points for the home team at the first break (29-22).

The Tigers would not exceed 20 points in a quarter for the rest of the night, scoring 18, 17, 16 in the final three periods as the Breakers mounted 20, 22 and 26 the rest of the way.

Corey Williams top scored for the Tigers with 19 points, and while he also pulled down 12 rebounds, "Homicide" also tossed away 10 turnovers, accumulating an ambiguous triple-double, but the frightening sign is that Williams now has 46 turnovers in six games at an average of 7.7 per game.

You can live with Williams turning the ball over, his eagerness to feed the ball into the big bodies can be his undoing on occasion, and he is constantly being pressured up the whole length of the floor, but it's the little turnovers that have to be erased from his game. (And the referees have to stop whistling him for a travel when he completes a reverse spin on his way to the basket.)

The Breakers (10-2) sit atop the NBL standings, and the Tigers should've beaten them twice, or at least could've beaten them twice, just as the Tigers could've, would've, should've defeated the Wollongong Hawks twice, and then things would've been different.

But now the Tigers are free falling into the Grand Canyon, and as their season slowly dies in front of our eyes, a slow and excruciating death, they can either stand up and show what they are a capable of, or they can continue to roll over and be booed.