Hawks’ slim thread in the NBL

Hawke’s Bay national men’s basketball side the Taylor Hawks are hanging onto the slimmest thread of a playoffs chance after a 19-points win over competition tailenders the Manawatū Jets in Taradale on Saturday night.

Hawks' player Josh Roberts, who claimed 29 rebounds in Saturday night’s win over the Manawatū Jets and heads the rebound statistics in the Sal’s NBL. Photo / Bay Hawks

The Hawks’ 97-78 victory was their seventh of the season and placed them in eighth place with one match to play in the 11-team, 20-round competition, seeking a top-six end to qualify.

To have any chance the Hawks have to beat second-placed Auckland Tuatara in Taradale on Wednesday night, the Otago Nuggets (seventh) have to lose to the Franklin Bulls (fifth) on Saturday, and the Nelson Giants (sixth) have to lose to the Taranaki Airs (third) in the last game of the regular season in New Plymouth next Sunday.

The Hawks would have to win by a significant margin, but were beaten 120-96 by Auckland earlier in the season. Coach Sam Gruggen says Tall Black Jordan Ngatai will be back from Greece where the national side ended its Olympic Games hopes midweek with elimination in a qualifying tournament.

Breaking a losing streak of five games, the Hawks went into the second-to-last weekend of the regular season well-placed on the leaderboards, notably with Isaiah Moore, second-to-top on average points per game, with 25.3, compared with the 26.2 of leader and Bulls player Luther Mahammad.

On Saturday, Jets player Mustapha Heron shot a match-high 30, with four from nine attempts at three points, and for the Hawks Josh Roberts shot 26, and Moore shot 25.

Roberts led the rebounds count with an average 12.8 per game, and claimed a remarkable 29 on Saturday night.

Gruggen is satisfied with the season’s performance, saying “everyone picked us to come last”, yet they were now in with a “mathematical” chance of a top-six placing.

“We’ll be playing to get the win, but we’ve ticked a lot of boxes,” he said. “The aim was to develop the local youth, and we’ve done that.”

In the Rapid League night-opener, the Hawks beat the Manawatū Jets 37-34 in development competition the Rapid League, and are in sixth place.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s best-ever run at a men’s World Under-17 championships, with Hawks’ rookie Jackson Ball in the squad, has ended with a crushing loss to the United States in a semifinal in Turkey.

The US won 145-65 and New Zealand, who beat Egypt and Lithuania in round of 16 and quarter-final games, was into a third-place playoff against Turkey, whom NZ beat 114-94 in the teams’ opening game.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 51 years of journalism experience, 40 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.