Henare lauds young hoops guns
Breakers coach Paul Henare doesn’t need a spot in the playoffs to tell him about the character and pluck of the squad he had this Australian NBL season.
But if the hoops gods happen to throw him an assist, he’ll gladly take it.
The Breakers gave themselves a shot at a postseason spot with their magnificent 88-70 victory over Melbourne United at the NSEC on Friday night. It was their best performance of the season, achieved in the most unpromising of circumstances, with the most unlikely of star performers, and took them to 14-14 to finish the regular season.
They require Melbourne to beat Perth at home today, and probably one or two other things to fall their way as the rest of the weekend plays out. They will need some luck. But after overcoming the defections of power forwards Akil Mitchell (eye) and Mika Vukona (infected knee) in the leadup to the Melbourne finale, Henare says his men can hold their heads high, never mind how things play out from here.
Led by breakout performances from 21-year-old Finn Delany (13 points, nine rebounds) and 24-year-old Shea Ili (12 points, five boards and three of three from beyond the arc), the undermanned Breakers stunned the powerful visiting lineup and knocked them out of playoff contention.
Given all they’ve been through this campaign (losing Ben Woodside and Corey Webster for the season, seeing David Stockton have to bail out as a replacement import, and also having Tom Abercrombie and Ili have to sit out long periods before the twin blows to Mitchell and Vukona) it left Henare beaming with pride late on Friday night.
‘‘I’m just extremely proud to be a part of a group like this,’’ Henare reflected ahead of a weekend of uncertainty and anxiety.
‘‘Any obstacle put in front of them, anything thrown at them, they find a way to keep pushing and keep battling for one another. That’s the most special thing about this group. We find out our captain, our spiritual, emotional and physical leader is out and we find a way.
‘‘That’s pretty special. No matter what happens this weekend, if we don’t make it, we don’t make it, I think everybody in this team this season can hold their heads high and be extremely proud of the way they conducted themselves on and off the floor.’’
But Henare refused to label a playoff miss (if it panned out that way) as heartbreaking.
‘‘That’s sport,’’ he replied. ‘‘We had a chance to get to 15 wins, and if we had 15 wins we wouldn’t be sitting here [in this position]. There’s 14 games can look at and say we probably should have got that one ... actually probably 10 or 12 as we had a couple of blowout games.
‘‘It’s a classic [Andrej] Lemanis saying, but it is what it is, and we’ll sit back and see what happens.’’ I think everybody in this team this season can hold their heads high.
One thing the Breakers could feel pretty satisfied about was the unearthing of first-year contracted players Delany and Ili as legitimate big-time performers in this league.
‘‘One of the things I’ve learned with Finny is you’ve just got to let him out there and say ‘go for it, buddy’. It’s unbelievable the energy he plays with. He must be a nightmare to play against. He just doesn’t stop. He made some massive plays, and it wasn’t just about the dunks, it was the timing of those things.’’
Henare also took special satisfaction out of his point guard Ili’s performance in which he not only contributed in a big way offensively but was the principal hand in keeping Melbourne star Chris Goulding to a two-of-12 shooting night.
It was a breakout display he’d seen building ever since the defensive dynamo returned from that long spell out at the start of the season dealing with a stress fracture in his back.
‘‘As he came back from injury, the confidence he was getting, the game fitness and putting himself in a position where he can do what he does best, I could definitely see it coming. I thought he did a hell of a job on Chris Goulding.’’