GETTING THERE: Marco Alexander. PHOTO/FILE
IT'LL BE another twist to the Hawks' final home game in basketball tomorrow against the Canterbury Rams.
Player/coach Paora Winitana "will be leading from the bench, as I've done on Sundays" because of his religious beliefs as the bishop of the Mormon church following his first victory, after assuming the mantle of coach, last month.
The IMS Payroll-sponsored Hawke's Bay franchise team will tip off at 2pm at the Pettigrew-Green Arena, Taradale, in the Bartercard National Basketball League (NBL) match.
The hosts are playing for pride while the visitors have a mathematical chance of making the playoffs, provided they clinch every game, and bank on another highly unlikely scenario of the Waitakere Rangers losing all their remaining matches, despite succumbing 95-90 to the Southland Sharks on Thursday.
Nelson Giants, the Sharks, Wellington Saints and the Rangers are jostling for top-four pecking order but the first two sides have already made the cull.
The fifth-placed Cantabrians last night thumped winless Taranaki Mountainairs 106-68 in New Plymouth to keep their final four hopes alive.
Conversely, the Rangers have the chance to seal their position on Saturday next week when they host the Hawks, if the Rams don't trip up before that.
With Hawks assistant coach George Galanoupolos expected to conduct proceedings tomorrow, it'll be the last opportunity for the Jarrod Kenny-captained side, with five wins from 10 matches, to convince the PG Arena faithful they have the attributes to do the job next season.
Injuries have hampered the Hawks as well, with Nigerian import power forward, Suleiman Braimoh, likely to return and bench point guard Marco Alexander putting up a rousing performance against the Airs last Saturday in Napier, the rejigged regime's maiden victory.
"Su is looking good and has been training well all week but it'll still be a game-time decision," says Winitana of the Nigerian import, who has a voracious appetite for double-doubles.
Alexander says he returned too soon to training and playing after hip surgery in Auckland last December. "I've had hip problems for a while and it got worse," says the 23-year-old of Macedonian descent, who at the end of last season signed a contract with Melbourne United to play in the 2014-15 ANBL, his maiden one in the elite Australian competition.
In his debut appearance, he helped Melbourne secure a victory over New Zealand Breakers by about 30 points.
He puts his hip frustrations down to a genetic disorder.
"My hips were too big so they shave off the bones to make more room for movement," he says, adding it got to a point where surgery was inevitable but he's beginning to "feel my old self again" and back to 80 per cent of normalcy.
Soon after returning to Melbourne from surgery in Auckland, he played two more games.
"It was a really good experience with the team in Melbourne so it helped me return to Hawke's Bay as a better player," he says.
Alexander says his 24-point contribution against the Airs was timely.
"It's been a tough season for me so it was good to respond and finish the season the right way."
With players such as Everard Bartlett and US imports Dustin Scott and Kareem Johnson not returning this winter, coupled with a new coach, the Hawks, he believes, still have the opportunity to finish fifth on the NBL table.
"Defensively we haven't been too bad but offensively it hasn't worked out for us.
"The offensive sets didn't fit our personnel at the start of the year so under Paora it's much better."
Their inability to score more than 70-80 points under sacked Aussie coach Liam Flynn "didn't fit people in the team".
Players who were planted while moving the ball around are now dribbling while doing that, giving shooters like Alonzo Burton and himself more open looks at the basketball hoop.