Basketball: City teams head south

By Peter Jessup

When the last basketball stopped bouncing after the last national league home-and-away game had finished at the weekend, there was silence as everyone did their sums to see who had made the playoffs.

Then there was a huge escape of air as the league management sighed in relief that hosts Canterbury would be at their new home stadium on Friday night, ensuring a good crowd at least for the semis.

League leaders Auckland and tied-for-second North Harbour would both have preferred to play semis at home.

"I'm incensed at the fact the top-seeded team gets absolutely no advantage for winning the regular season," said Auckland coach Tab Baldwin. And Harbour's Tracey Carpenter commented on that big sigh and said in future the management should not meddle in the finals format, which had been to play home and away semis and finals with league leaders favoured in the best-of-three.

Auckland won the championship three times under that format then the league changed it - a cynic might say because Auckland won it three times.

Anyway, the two city teams will both travel south on Friday with full squads, no one injured when Auckland dropped their last game to Waikato and Harbour dumped Wellington. On Friday Auckland play Wellington in the first game then Harbour face Canterbury at home.

The round-robin play finished with the Rebels on 24 points and a five-way tie between Harbour, Wellington, Canterbury, Waikato and Nelson all on 18.

Waikato made it five straight in beating Auckland 89-85 in Hamilton on Saturday, Nelson thumped Otago 121-89, but both won pyrrhic victories in that they both missed the playoffs on previous results: Canterbury beat the Jets 116-71 and they, Harbour and Wellington got through because they had beaten the other two in round-robin play.

Baldwin was not concerned at the loss five days away from a must-win semi.

"We played to a script, we were trying some things out. It's not the way we'd have played if we had to win it to make the semis - our idea was to look at how we want to play the finals tactically and to try some things that were not specifically aimed at beating Waikato but were aimed at beating other teams next weekend," Baldwin said.

But losing was not in the script, he admitted.

"They played a very good zone defence and when we adjusted to it they changed their style. They did it well. It was a good test for us."

Auckland beat Wellington twice in round-robin play, 101-86 in Wellington and 90-87 at home.

Harbour coach Tracey Carpenter grants the Rams some advantage through their notoriously vocal and one-eyed fans but reckons Harbour has improved at a rate that puts them in front on the floor.

"We've won five from six of our last games [the one loss to Auckland by one point in overtime] and the players know they're playing better each week. We're still stepping up and we know we can get better."

Carpenter came in mid-season just before those wins. It was always going to take time to make the transition from Tony Bennett's game plan, he said, and now they were well into that time.

"We played very well offensively," he said of Saturday's win over Wellington. "We had to win, we wanted it and we took it."

Canadian import Dave Daniels had added energy and incision to the attack, Carpenter said, and Kirk Penney was showing the benefit of his time in the United States mid-season.

"He has a toughness about him that's unusual for an 18-year-old." With Chris Ensminger suffering no ill-effects of the hand injury he received against Auckland the previous weekend Harbour have great firepower.

They will need it: the Rams' Clifton Bush top-scored at the weekend with 32 and Rob Hickey, Jason Kyle, Craig Farrant, Carlo Varricchio and Rewi Manahi were all in double digits to underline the options Canterbury have.