Basketball: Stars top table with road wins

Auckland lead the national league after a road double-header, Lindsay Tait showing no ill-effects from the Breakers' China tour to take a lead in the scoring in both games.

The Stars won 86-83 in Hawkes Bay yesterday after an 87-72 win over Manawatu on Saturday, Tait the top-scorer with 27 yesterday and 19 to back up import Kareem Johnson's 23 in Palmerston North.

He seems assured of a Breakers job for next season.

A tired and injury-hit Waikato Titans are second in the table after slumping 88-80 to Canterbury in Hamilton yesterday.

Lance Baker and Puke Lendon carried knee trouble into the contest, Kantrail Horton had an ankle strain and point guard Luke Martin was away with the Sydney Kings in pre-season in Singapore.

Pero Cameron, who was in Turkey mid-week looking at Tab Baldwin's team Banvitspoor as a prospect, played 20 minutes for four points and six rebounds before he fouled out.

"He gave us the effort he could but he'll be disappointed with that and he'll come back better, I'm sure," coach Tim McTamney said.

The Titans' new import, Mike Bauer from Minnesota, replaced Greg Lewis who has a broken hand.

"Bauer played well after just 40 minutes training with the team. He was lost at times offensively but he played with intensity, he shot the ball well," McTamney said. "The rest didn't step up the same way. We looked like a team that thought we were going to win when the ball was thrown up. We built a lead and I got the feeling they thought they were going to walk away with it easily."

Instead, Rams import Ryan Prillman scored 37 with good work in offensive rebounding and put-backs.

"We were very poor defensively," McTamney said.

The Titans hit the road to Hawkes Bay on Friday and Palmerston North on Saturday with the coach expecting a "test of character" - and two wins to cement their top placing.

The Rams were beaten 106-95 in the first leg of their road double-header in New Plymouth on Saturday, reversing the 117-94 win over the Taranaki Mountain Airs in Christchurch a week ago.

Taranaki captain Willie Banks was the big destroyer with 29 points from 10 of 18 field goal attempts, three steals and two assists. Link Abrams shot 26, Tony Rampton 17.

Otago Nuggets showed little interest in their contest in Nelson, dropping 84-68 despite the home team playing all the bench for extended time to give experience to newcomers, including college students Jeremiah Trueman and Hugh Quinlivan.

None of the Giants played more than 28 minutes. Aussie import Scott McGregor played 31 for the Nuggets and managed only six points.

Yesterday, they went down 88-67 to the Saints in a lacklustre game in Wellington, the home team putting together an 11-0 run in the third quarter which finished the visitors.

Nelson play the double in Auckland next weekend with the Stars on Friday and the Heat Saturday, then backing up in Taranaki on Sunday.

Across the Tasman, basketball fans are awaiting the announcement that father-and-son team Lindsay and Andrew Gaze are retiring.

The pair have just returned from a pre-season trip to China where the Melbourne Tigers beat the Breakers in the final of a four-way tournament, with the older Gaze appearing to hand over the coaching job to assistant Al Westover.

Lindsay Gaze played in three Olympics (1960-68) and coached the Boomers at four (1972-84) and has 685 games as a coach in the Aussie NBL in 22 consecutive seasons with the Tigers; Andrew played in five Olympics (1984-98) plus four world championships and is the longest-serving player in the ANBL, starting at the Tigers in 1984 with his dad.