{"id":15543,"date":"2020-06-29T16:35:27","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T06:35:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.draftcentral.com.au\/?p=15543"},"modified":"2020-06-29T16:35:27","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T06:35:27","slug":"2020-sals-nbl-showdown-week-2-preview-who-will-back-up-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/2020-sals-nbl-showdown-week-2-preview-who-will-back-up-the-best\/","title":{"rendered":"2020 Sal&#8217;s NBL Showdown Week 2 preview: Who will back up the best?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A WEEK of the 2020 Sal&#8217;s National Basketball League (NBL) competition is in the books and the top sides have started to emerge, while others improved across the week to show the competition will be incredibly even over the next month. With another 10 games set for this week, it will be a huge round of action.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Auckland Huskies:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gradually improved over their first three games, particularly in the narrow loss to the Bulls, so starting to gel<\/li>\n<li>With <strong>Izayah Mauriahooho Le&#8217;afa<\/strong> back for the Huskies, they will have the full side they expected heading into the competition<\/li>\n<li>A tough couple of games this week against the in-form Airs and building Giants (who will surely have <strong>Mika Vukona<\/strong> back), but only the two games this week<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>vs. Taranaki Mountainairs &#8211; Tuesday, 5.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Nelson Giants &#8211; Sunday, 5.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Canterbury Rams:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>After a favourable draw in terms of rest in week one (two days between games) the undefeated Rams have to face the Jets and Giants back-to-back midweek<\/li>\n<li>A potential unbeaten clash with the Nuggets awaits on Sunday<\/li>\n<li>Have had a perfect start to the season despite losing two key players prior to the season in <strong>Jack Salt<\/strong> and <strong>Joe Cook-Green<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>vs. Manawatu Jets &#8211; Wednesday, 7.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Nelson Giants &#8211; Thursday, 7.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Otago Nuggets &#8211; Saturday, 7.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Franklin Bulls:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Three games this week with the two days break between them, starting with the Giants on Tuesday as both teams recorded their first wins on the weekend<\/li>\n<li>A tough few games this round, against three sides that could well be title contenders<\/li>\n<li>Broke the drought in their third game for an important win against the Huskies to have the belief to carry it over<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>vs. Nelson Giants &#8211; Tuesday, 7.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Otago Nuggets &#8211; Thursday, 5.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Manawatu Jets &#8211; Saturday, 5.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Manawatu Jets<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tough encounter up against the undefeated Rams, but have been building the last couple of games<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tom Vodanovich<\/strong> is unstoppable when &#8220;on&#8221; and <strong>Hyrum Harris<\/strong> is not too far behind<\/li>\n<li>Ideally would love the three wins, but the two from this patch would be great considering the one-day turnaround on the weekend<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>vs. Canterbury Rams &#8211; Wednesday, 7.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Franklin Bulls &#8211; Saturday, 5.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Taranaki Mountainairs &#8211; Sunday, 7.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nelson Giants<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Showed why they could do with <strong>Mike Karena<\/strong> and <strong>Dane Brooks<\/strong> back in the side, looking a completely different outfit<\/li>\n<li>Playing two of the other bottom three teams this round which the Giants would back themselves in<\/li>\n<li>Surely Vukona returns after touted to return the last couple of games<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>vs. Franklin Bulls &#8211; Tuesday, 7.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Canterbury Rams &#8211; Thursday, 7.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Auckland Huskies &#8211; Sunday, 5.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Otago Nuggets<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>After the two games in week one, the Nuggets have a tough three games in four days which will really test the team<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jordan Ngatai<\/strong> and <strong>Jarrod Kenny<\/strong> are in ripping form and hard to stop<\/li>\n<li>Two of the other top three sides in this round will give the Nuggets a huge idea of where they stand<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>vs. Taranaki Airs &#8211; Wednesday, 5.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Franklin Bulls &#8211; Thursday, 5.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Canterbury Rams &#8211; Saturday, 7.30pm<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taranaki Mountainairs<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Had a good first week and showed they are a title contender after pushing the Rams all the way<\/li>\n<li>Have gelled well and will hope to continue that form against the Huskies and Nuggets &#8211; the latter of whom have had almost a week&#8217;s break<\/li>\n<li>A four-day gap between their second and third games will have the Airs cherry ripe for the Jets in the final game of the week<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>vs. Auckland Huskies &#8211; Tuesday, 5.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Otago Nuggets &#8211; Wednesday, 5.30pm<br \/>\nvs. Manawatu Jets &#8211; Sunday, 7.30pm<\/p>\n<p><b>WEEK 2 FIXTURES:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Tuesday June 30<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Airs vs Huskies &#8211; 5:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Giants vs Bulls &#8211; 7:30pm<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Wednesday July 1<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Airs vs Nuggets &#8211; 5:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jets vs Rams &#8211; 7:30pm<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Thursday July 2<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nuggets vs Bulls &#8211; 5:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rams vs Giants &#8211; 7:30pm<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Saturday July 4<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bulls vs Jets &#8211; 5:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rams vs Nuggets &#8211; 7:30pm<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Sunday July 5<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Huskies vs Giants &#8211; 5:30pm<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jets vs Airs &#8211; 7:30pm<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A WEEK of the 2020 Sal&#8217;s National Basketball League (NBL) competition is in the books and the top sides have started to emerge, while others improved across the week to show the competition will be incredibly even over the next month. With another 10 games set for this week, it will be a huge round [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":15111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2894,2871],"tags":[2926,2925,2885,2886,3063,2889,2929,3123,2927,107,2977,2950,2887,3031,2884,2922,2888,2924,3167,3166],"class_list":["post-15543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbl-nz","category-news","tag-2020-nznbl","tag-2020-sals-nbl","tag-auckland-huskies","tag-canterbury-rams","tag-dane-brooks","tag-franklin-bulls","tag-hyrum-harris","tag-izayah-mauriahooho-leafa","tag-jack-salt","tag-jarrod-kenny","tag-joe-cook-green","tag-jordan-ngatai","tag-manawatu-jets","tag-mike-karena","tag-nelson-giants","tag-nznbl","tag-otago-nuggets","tag-sals-nbl","tag-taranki-mountainairs","tag-tom-vondanovich"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}