Penney poser for Breakers coach
DIFFERENT game, different priority. For Breakers coach Paul Henare his focus switches in Sydney today from fast-tracking his youngsters’ crunch-time experience to getting some much-needed hoops into veteran Kirk Penney.
Henare got tongues around the league wagging on Friday night when he effectively sacrificed a victory in preference for playing his young bench players at the business end of the 84-82 defeat to the Illawarra Hawks at the NSEC.
With that game carrying little weight for the Breakers who are guaranteed a playoff spot, but couldn’t improve to the top two (and home advantage), Henare was happy to risk losing an 11-point final-quarter lead, which he did, to enable the likes of Finn Delany, Shea Ili and Jordan Ngatai to experience closing out a tight contest.
For that he received the backing of highly respected Illawarra coach Rob Beveridge who leapt to his colleague’s support.
‘‘Pauli showed some great courage as a coach by throwing those young guys out there. Really it was a nothing game and for him to do that was as ballsy as you get,’’ said Beveridge. ‘‘That’s going to go such a long way for those young guys.
‘‘There is no way Pauli would ever hand a game to anybody. He made a decision as a coach he was going to expose these young guys to it and it’s only going to be better for them down the track.’’
Henare said his mindset was different for today’s regular season finale against the suddenly in-form Kings in Sydney.
He confirmed the injured Penney (calf) and Alex Pledger (ribs), who both sat out Friday’s game, would travel for the game, and he hoped to get both on court for significant minutes.
‘‘I’d like to get Kirk and Pledge on the floor if we can,’’ he said. ‘‘Otherwise it’s a long time between drinks, especially for Kirk who’s been out a few weeks already.
‘‘For 36-37 minutes [against the Hawks] it was pretty good basketball. The loss will take a little bit, or maybe a lot for some people, of the gloss off of what we did.
‘‘But going to Sydney my message to the guys is if you are on the floor, you are on the floor to play hard, compete and win every possession, and we’ll go into that game with the same mindset.’’
‘ I’d like him to play but if he can’t play it doesn’t make any sense to play him and then push him back any further.’ PAUL HENARE
Asked if Penney was close to being game ready, Henare said: ‘‘I’d like him to play but if he can’t play it doesn’t make any sense to play him and then push him back any further. We’ll make those decisions on him and Pledge on Sunday.’’
The Breakers are relaxed about any need for momentum going into the playoffs, where they will almost certainly meet Melbourne United, with game one scheduled for March 3 at Hisense Arena.
With the Fiba international window creating a buffer between the end of the regular season and start of playoffs, clearly priorities have changed a little.
One thing Friday night did show: young power forward Finn Delany, who finished with 23 points on eight-of-13 shooting, has the potential to be a differencemaker in the post-season. Probably Shea Ili (14 points, four assists, four rebounds) too, though Henare admitted he probably learned the most from the end-game meltdown.
‘‘He had two really bad turnovers, and a bad foul on Rhys Martin on the three-point line. It’s one of those situations where he’s possibly going to be called upon to close a close game out, and he’s got to be able to make better decisions than what he did.’’
The learning process continues.