Basketball: Trip north disaster for Rams

By MURRAY McKINNON

The Canterbury Rams had a disastrous start to the NBL season in their first away games in Auckland.

The four times National Basketball League champions and last year's semifinalists went down to the Auckland Stars and the Harbour Heat.

The Stars had a confidence-boosting 95-82 victory, and the Heat shut out the Rams 86-76 yesterday.

Auckland finished the first quarter 20-18 ahead after scoring nine unanswered points.

David Langrell launched a second-quarter attack for Canterbury with three-point bombs, but Auckland fought back to end the half with a solid run of scoring from Aaron Olson and Ben Valentine.

Olson made two three-pointers to give Auckland a 42-36 advantage.

The Stars dominated the third quarter as Arizona forward Casey Frank made 11 of the 15 points he scored in the game.

Olson continued to master the perimeter, and Auckland outscored Canterbury 29-14.

Canterbury recovered some ground in the final five minutes, import Mike Pegues stepping up to restore some respectability to the score.

Stars coach Kenny Stone said the win was the key thing.

"We weren't consistent the whole game, and there is a long way to go, but to successfully defend our home court is a good start," he said.

Harbour, under new coach Colin Driscoll, edged out to a 48-42 lead at the break.

Brad Riley led the charge with 13 and Brendon Pongia hit from the three-point line.

John Smith came under heavy defence from Canterbury in the second half, restricting him to shooting from the free-throw line, where his success was limited.

Dylan Chase rounded out the game with a lay up and a two from the free throw for Harbour's opening win.

"We wanted to keep Canterbury under 80," said Driscoll.

Jeff Green's prediction of the Waikato Titans going unbeaten for the season and winning a run of three successive league titles was still on track after his team beat the Manawatu Jets 92-73 in Hamilton on Saturday night.

But Green was not happy with the performance.

"We did not play good defence and our offence was cold." he said.

Waikato led throughout. Nat Connell top-scored with 23 and Glen Joe and Iona Enosa each made 18. For the Jets, Stacey Lambert was the best with 19.

The Otago Nuggets came back from a 70-68 loss to the Nelson Giants on Friday to beat the Wellington Saints 89-82.

The Nuggets led 45-38 at the break.

A total of 27 turnovers and a horror third quarter cost the Saints dearly.

Otago's import, Issiah Epps, bagged 29 points and 13 boards, and Hayden Allen scored 23 points.

Saints coach Dean Vickerman said sloppy offence cost Wellington the game.

"Turnovers were the key to the game, absolutely ... every time we made a turnover they did a good job of punishing us," he said.

"We played defence well, but we shot terribly.

"Offensively, we were far too individual."

In the other game, the Hawks beat Taranaki 118-99.