Basketball: Hawks battle the odds in Rams NBL showdown

Hawks star Derone Raukawa was on Tuesday named the best New Zealand guard of the 2023 Sal's national basketball league. Photo / Ian Cooper

The Hawks will play the Canterbury Rams in the opening match at the men’s Sal’s National Basketball League top-six playoff in Auckland on Thursday.

The match for a place in the next day’s semifinals will start at 6.30pm and sees the sixth-ranked Hawks as a $3.50-to-win long shot, with the number-three-ranked Rams favourites at $1.25 to win, according to TAB odds.

Once among the favourites, after starting the 18-match regular season with two away wins at Easter, the Hawks are championship outsiders at $15 to win Saturday’s final, if they get there.

Auckland Tuatara, who the Hawks beat in Napier earlier this month in one of the big upset results of the season, are favourites to win the final, paying $2.50.

Starting with the Hawks’ first loss of the season in April – the first of six consecutive home-match defeats - the Rams have posted both of the two highest scores against the Hawks in 2023.

The Rams won 110-103 in a triple-overtime drama on the home Pettigrew-Green Arena court three months ago, and last month won 112-97 on the Rams’ home court in Christchurch during King’s Birthday weekend.

Last year the Hawks, whose only title in the 42 years of the league was in 2006 and who most recently made the final in 2019 and 2021, beat the Rams in overtime in the last round of the regular season to claim a place in the playoffs for a fourth year in a row, but were soon farewelled by the Otago Nuggets in the sudden death preliminary semifinal.

The Hawks only got through to this year’s playoffs with wins in the last three games, all at home, to finish with a record of eight wins and 10 losses in the regular season.

Meanwhile, star player Derone Raukawa was the only Hawk recognised in Tuesday night’s Sal’s NBL Awards, being named as the league’s outstanding New Zealand guard.

Thursday night’s second preliminary semifinal will be between the fourth-ranked Franklin Bulls and fifth-ranked Wellington Saints.