Basketball: Team are ready for victory and for defeat

Paul Henare. Photo / Getty Images

The victory caps have been printed, the celebration party has been pencilled in for Tuesday, and the championship ring sizes have been supplied to the league.

If that all seems presumptuous to the point of inviting fate to hand the Breakers a hubris-busting defeat tomorrow, don't panic.

The club has also been busy making plans to deal with a loss that would send the ANBL grand finals series to a third game at the North Shore Events Centre on Friday night.

Corporate tables for a match that may never happen have already sold out, while game three tickets will be on sale within moments of a defeat tomorrow evening.

Or not.

Such is the nature of the planning for a series where the final match comes with an "if required" asterisk.

For Paul Henare, the retiring Breaker who has been at the club since day one, tomorrow's result will mark either the end of his career or the beginning of its most important week. It's not something he's dwelling on.

"I haven't even thought about it," Henare said.

"It has just been so much fun being around this group of guys and being in the situation and the environment we have been in the last few weeks. I'm really caught up in the moment and loving every minute of it."

Despite the comprehensive nature of Wednesday's game one victory, the Breakers won't be taking anything for granted tomorrow.

The prize on offer - a first championship for the club and a first Australian title for a New Zealand sports team - would ensure the team didn't lose the edge that has carried them to three straight playoff victories, Henare said.

"There should be no motivation needed. Everybody knows what is on the line. As much as we love playing [in Auckland] we don't want to come back and play again this season.

"But right now Cairns' season is on the line as well. They are playing for the same thing we are. We have got to continue to find that place inside us where we can come out and give it our all."