Basketball: Harbour fired up to spoil party

By Peter Jessup

If the TAB odds are anything to go by, Wellington don't have a snowball's chance in hell of beating Auckland and Canterbury will down North Harbour in tonight's national basketball league semifinals.

That would set up the match the league wants - league leaders Auckland versus home team Canterbury - for Saturday's final at the Christchurch team's new stadium.

But the TAB may be discounting Harbour's ability in putting them at $2.80 against $1.37 for the Rams. Given the Kings' firepower in Kirk Penney (averaging 26 points a game) and Chris Ensminger (average 21), with import Dave Daniels (18), Tall Black Andrew Parke, Brendon Cathie-Pongia and veteran Kenny Perkins, I pick the Harbour outfit to beat home crowd advantage.

But Auckland are a shoe-in. They have beaten Wellington twice this season and Saints' coach Gareth Rapson's record against Auckland's Tab Baldwin is 0-4. He reckons even his dog is shaking its head when the question over Wellington's chances comes up. In most cases, that might be a coach's strategy going into finals, but Rapson's dog is right.

The Auckland team are too strong in attack for the Saints.

Aside from the powerful motivation of wanting to go from minor premiers to the big one and reclaiming the title they won three years in a row from 1995 and then blew last year, they will be playing for long-time team-mate Kenny Stone, who will retire after the finals series in Christchurch.

Stone, a father for the second time this week when son Cameron was born after training on Tuesday night, has been slowing as you would expect for a man going into his mid-30s but is still the complete attack and defence unit in the middle. With Tall Black captain Pero Cameron in top form, the guard attack from Dillon Boucher and Paul Henare - probably Auckland's most improved player - and import Scott Benson hammering an average 20 points, Auckland will be way too strong for the Saints.

The team had had a good preparation, Baldwin said, claiming he was still wary of Wellington in a one-game situation. But yesterday he was watching tapes of Canterbury and Harbour to prepare for the expected final on Saturday.

Asked who he would rather face there, Baldwin said that was the hardest question about the weekend and he had been pondering it for a while. "I really rate North Harbour as an outstanding team and at their best they are as good as Nelson or us at our best. But then I don't relish the thought of taking on Canterbury on their home court."

Kings coach Tracey Carpenter put his side through several short, sharp training sessions this week and yesterday declared them fired up and focused on the specifics they needed to beat Canterbury, in particular shutting down their imports Clifton Bush (average 21) and Robert Wilson (20).

Wilson scored 40 of Canterbury's 82 points when the teams last played. "Those two contribute more to their team than any other two imports in the league," said Carpenter.

He said the Kings defence was fine, they had worked on building attacking combinations and they felt they had the firepower to send the Rams to the knackers' yard.

Like Baldwin, he did not care to make a call on whom he would rather face in a final, should the Kings get there. Unlike Baldwin, he was not preparing that far ahead.