The alarm bells should have gone off as the pass flew towards Akiene Tera-Reed.
She had already hit two three-pointers in the second quarter.
Yet there was not a Southern Hoiho defender in sight as she caught and released her third.
That plummeted through the hoop seconds later, taking the Northern Kahu lead to 20 midway through the quarter.
It was not the first instance of it, and far from the last.
The shot was one of nine first-half triples the Kahu hit — the majority uncontested — as it converted at 50% to tear out to a 57-24 halftime lead.
From there the problems compounded, as the Kahu ran out 95-47 winners to remain unbeaten in Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa, in Auckland last night.
It was, mostly, not due to a lack of effort from the Hoiho.
They were just painfully out of their depth.
The Kahu operated at a far higher level, picking to pieces the Hoiho defence — which was too slow reacting to the quick and efficient ball movement.
That ball movement was shown in the 28 assists the Kahu had on their 35 field goals.
Tahlia Tupaea led that tally with 12, while Krystal Leger-Walker had eight.
They were expertly finished, Marte Grays leading the way with 25 points on nine-of-13 shooting, while Tera-Reed finished on 21 points on six-of-eight.
Initially it was the inability to guard the shooters that was the Hoiho’s issue.
They fell behind early, coach Natalie Visger forced to use both her first half timeouts within eight minutes, as the score reached 11-2, and then 19-5.
The Hoiho worked their way back to 33-21, before a barrage of three-point shooting — and the Hoiho’s inability to get a hand up on the shooters — extended the score to 57-24.
As the game went on, and the defence was stretched, the problems compounded.
The Hoiho could not keep up, as the Kahu moved the ball and hit their cutters, which the Hoiho defence was hopelessly losing.
Then transition became a problem, the Kahu even beating the Hoiho up the court and scoring an open layup after a Hoiho made basket — arguably the biggest humiliation for any defence.
Offensively, the Hoiho could not get anything going.
They struggled to gain penetration, largely being clamped on the perimeter, while the higher intensity of the Kahu defence easily broke down the Hoiho sets.
Laina Snyder was her usual productive self, posting 17 points and six assists.
Samara Gallaher managed 13 points, while Tori Dugan had a useful third quarter patch in which she scored seven quickly.
But there was too little else and the bench, which was missing role players Bronwyn Kjestrup and Janet Maoate-Breen, did not contribute a single point.
The loss followed the Hoiho’s first win of the season on Sunday, leaving them with one win from eight games.
They face the Mainland Pouakai on Monday in Queenstown, likely needing to win most, if not all, of their remaining four matches to make the top four playoffs of the five team league.
Tauihi Basketball
The scores
Kahu 95
Marte Grays 25, Akiene Tera-Reed 21
Hoiho 47
Laina Snyder 17, Samara Gallaher 13
Quarter scores: 22-11, 57-24, 81-40
