Basketball: Choppers look sharp in bid to retain title

REACHING GOALS: Kaia's Sid Adams (left) and Deola D'Brown Folarin go up for the ball against Rack City's Arthur Trousdale. James Paringatai awaits developments.

THE LEADING contenders were all emerging for today's playoffs in the Men's Premier division at the 2015 HoopNation tournament at Springvale Stadium.

Heading into yesterday evening, the top two teams from each pool were still to be confirmed by the final games, but defending champions the Auckland Choppers with their who's-who lineup of stars had picked up three key victories.

Toa - the NZ Maori, had also notched up three wins, while the fancied international team of Kaia were late getting out of the blocks with key losses on the first day, including to Hawke's Bay's Rack City, before getting win No1 that evening.

Rack City were very good in that game, but also dropped a match to Toa yesterday as several of the 11 Premier teams raced to secure second spot in their pool and get through to the semifinals.

In the big game at lunchtime Saturday, it appeared history may have been repeating itself as the title favourites Choppers were in a tight scrap with the Junior Tall Blacks, who beat them in 2014's pool play.

However, big-match experience from players with a host of Tall Blacks, Breakers and NBL caps saw the Auckland team emerge 47-41 victors.

With a starting line like Casey Frank, Lindsay Tait, Duane Bailey, Aaron Nowell and Hayden Allen, Choppers showed how quick they could make the turnarounds - specifically with long court passes, as they have a familiarity the Juniors could not hope to match.

However, the young players hung in there and with a deep lineup were able to make whole shift changes, so their tempo never really went down, whereas Choppers would drift in and out.

Leading 11-7 at quartertime, Choppers went on a signature scoring burst with Tyler Kerlin's steal and layup moving them to 18-7 ahead.

While they missed a few shots, the Juniors' Toby Gillooly, Kaeleb Tyner-Wenman and giant 16-year-old Callum McRae - who even stood a nearly foot taller than Casey - were able to close the gap, as Quinn Clinton's three made it 21-18 at halftime.

Josh Aitcheson had a strong third quarter, highlighted by a good bucket despite a hard hit from Tait, while Choppers became frustrated with the referee calls against them.

Clinton took the Juniors into the lead with free throws, although there was a bit of confusion around the scoreboard at the threequarter hooter, with the Juniors up 32-31.

That was expanded to 36-31 and the Choppers looked to be in trouble, but they merely put all their first-stringers back on and ratcheted up into fifth gear.

Bailey hit a massive three-pointer to give his team the lead back 38-36, while Choppers kept the youngsters away from their hoop long enough to regather momentum - Tait scoring off good leadup work from Nowell.

Franks and Allen then got in on the act and at 45-36 with the clock ticking down, they were safe to cruise the match out.

Hawke's Bay's Rack City, the 2012 champions and previous runners-up, also made a statement as they three-point bombed their way to a 71-56 win over the Kaia International team on Saturday afternoon.

Kaia had the names - Japan's Jun Iwasa, Nigeria's Deola D'Brown Folarin and locals like talented young man Akira Marsters and HoopNation's organiser Paul Berridge.

But when Rack City's Karl Noyer coolly potted nothing-but-net from the three-point line on three straight occasions, the story of the match was setting in as Rack City took a 23-14 lead into the first break.

Folarin found Arthur Trousdale all over him, then he and Iwasa would try to up the tempo, but Rack City had the court pre-sighted like a machine gunner as they kept nailing the big shots, along with Marco Alexander and Bronson Beri getting a couple of nice layups for 33-24 at halftime.

Marsters tried to inject some spark in the third quarter, but Rack City expanded their advantage and played smart percentages, which told in the 51-39 scoreline coming into the final period.

Alexander also got into the three-point shooting spree in the final quarter, landing back-to-back buckets, and while Folarin had enough time for a steal and awesome one-handed jam, the game was long gone.

Today's Premier semfinals will be at 12 noon, with the final at 3pm.

Preceding that will be the women's and men's A Finals, starting at 1pm.