The Brief
After being starved of success for more than a decade, the Otago Nuggets are suddenly the hottest team in the league.
It would be so easy to disappear into a haze of hyperbole and never emerge, and the last thing we want to do is pour cold water on their perfect start to the 2013 campaign.
But a word of warning - two of the Nuggets' five wins have come against the Auckland-based Super City Rangers. They were cobbled together when the championship-winning Auckland Pirates dropped out of the league and are very much a development side.
The Waikato Pistons are a shadow of their formal selves and heavily reliant on their star imports.
The wins against the Nelson Giants and Hawkes Bay Hawks cannot be so easily dismissed, though. The box score from the Giants game is one to frame. But if you did hang it on the wall, you would soon notice how poorly the Giants shot that night. And the Hawks, well, they have not hit their straps yet.
The Nuggets still have a lot to prove but any lingering doubt would dissolve with back-to-back wins against the Taranaki Mountain Airs and the Southland Sharks at the Edgar Centre this weekend. The Nuggets force more turnovers, grab more steals, score more points in the paint and concede fewer points than any other team in the league. That bodes extremely well for a productive weekend.
THE TWIN CHALLENGE
Taranaki Mountain Airs
Main weapons: Classy guard Jack Leasure is shooting a career-low 23.9% this season but must eventually come right. Fellow American Kenny Gabriel is also capable of lighting it up.
Game plan: Force the Nuggets to shoot more shots from the three-point line, where they are last in the league at 26.3%.
Prospects: The Mountain Airs cannot be dismissed lightly but the Nuggets should have too much muscle and depth for the visitors.
Prediction: Nuggets 95-73.
Southland Sharks
Main weapons: Former Breakers guard Kevin Braswell drilled seven three-pointers in the win against the Waikato Pistons and remains a huge threat. Leon Henry is no slouch from beyond the arc, either, and they have some brawn up front in Brian Conklin.
Game plan: The Sharks are going to bomb away and look, whenever possible, to score in multiples of three. But they will need to do a better job on the boards if they are going to extend the home team.
Prospects: The Nuggets have a short turnaround and might struggle down the stretch. There are a lot of old legs in the team but a lot of character, too.
Prediction: Nuggets 85-81.
