Basketball: Slagging off, selection bypass fire emotions

By PETER JESSUP

The heat is turned up for Auckland's basketball game against Waikato in Hamilton tomorrow night, partly fuelled by Titans coach Jeff Green slagging Auckland and Tall Black coach Tab Baldwin.

Green copped a $2000 fine for accusing the national coach of racial prejudice in selection and declaring some of his players better than those chosen for the Tall Blacks train-on squad.

Basketball New Zealand hoped the issue would fade. But this is the first time the teams have met since the May incident.

Four former Auckland players are now with Hamilton. Four Auckland players are in the Tall Blacks squad while their team struggles mid-table, but only captain Pero Cameron has been selected from table-topping Waikato.

The threat of legal action lingers from Baldwin and the Auckland team organisation.

Emotions are sure to be screwed up.

The Titans are unbeaten, scoring an average 100.5 points a game, with 94 their lowest tally this season.

That is Auckland's highest, achieved just last weekend away against Otago in a 50/50 season.

Auckland will gain some variation in attack after signing Kiwi-Canadian Aaron Olsen. The 23-year-old forward scored 15 against the Nuggets at the weekend and fouled out in 15 minutes, struggling to cope with some ordinary refereeing in his first game.

But as Olsen gains local knowledge and works up combinations, he gives the Aucklanders options other than big man Ben Pepper, who has been marked out.

The Titans have the league's top-scorer in Clifton Bush, averaging 28 points a game; former Aucklander Riki Strother tops the league for free-throws; and Green has the amazing luxury of introducing former Auckland captain Cameron from the bench.

With David Hopoi, Chris Tupu, Nat Connell and former Aucklander Prem Krishna all in good form, the visitors are up against it.

Second-placed Wellington visits on Saturday, and there is the chance that these games will be Auckland's season. Win two and they're in a playoff spot; lose two and they're struggling.

Both sides are injury-free, barring Auckland's junior big guy Ben Valentine, who was knocked out in training for a third concussion. At 2.05m but only mid-80s in kilograms, the 19-year-old's full-on style is costing.

Auckland's best chance may well lie in Waikato overplaying it for their coach, or that Green will overplay things.

He has occasionally taken a leaf from famous basketball misbehaver John Dybvig's book, but declared himself emotion-free in the leadup to tomorrow night's game. His team would do the talking.

"They're not only playing Auckland, they're playing in front of the Tall Black coach who picked other guys ahead of them. They're going out with plenty to prove," he said.

"They want to crush Auckland. I don't have to do much personally to fire them up."

Baldwin said his team had talked about Green's comments but had not focused on the issue.

To a question about whether the comments clouded the game, he said: "It would be playing dodge-ball if I said that wasn't the case.

"It would be unfortunate if that becomes the emphasis but we can't escape the fact it's there.

"The fans aren't immune to it, the players aren't immune to it, the media is loving it," Baldwin said.

"But we'd rather beat them for a whole lot of other reasons: we'd like to win because they're unbeaten; we want to win because they're top of the league; we want to win to prove our playoff ability; we mostly want to win to get two competition points."

Green responded: "I look on it as an opportunity. I don't rate them. We should have put them away last time [in round one in Auckland, Waikato won 95-91 after the locals rallied late] and if we had they wouldn't be coming down here with any confidence at all."

Tip-off at the Hamilton YMCA is at 7.30 pm.