NBL Playoffs Switcheroo
Tagged in: Competitions, NBL
Dominion Finance NBL regular season champions, the Century City Wellington Saints, will get to play on their home floor at TSB Bank Arena in the playoffs.
To preserve home court advantage for those teams who have played their way into those positions, Basketball New Zealand has made a move to switch the order of NBL Playoffs games, starting June 10.
The Saints, who finished their regular season on Saturday night with a 14-4 record, were originally slated to host the second semifinal on Friday, June 13, which has now been switched to a day earlier.
The second-placed team after the regular season – currently the Waikato Pistons, who can not host the Thursday night semifinal at their Te Awamutu Events Centre home court – will now host the second semifinal.
“Stadium availability is an annual problem for teams come playoffs time due to the closeness of the League and uncertainty of final positions. Look at this year, with one round to play, we still only have one position confirmed,” Basketball New Zealand CEO Dale Stephens said.
“With the Saints unable to host the Friday night semifinal and the Pistons – currently second, but not confirmed – unable to host the Thursday night game, it made perfect sense to switch these games.
“We wanted to do all we could to ensure teams that earned the right to play in front of their home fans in the playoffs got the chance. We would do this for any of the franchises if they were in this situation.”
The semifinal switch also precluded a switch to the two quarterfinal match-ups earlier in the week, with the first quarterfinal now featuring the fourth and fifth qualifiers on Tuesday, June 10, and the second seeing the third and sixth qualifiers face-off on Wednesday, June 11.
Commitments to the Tall Blacks preparations for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Athens in mid-July has seen the 2008 NBL season compressed into a four-month window, which will see seven playoff games in 11 days.
Dominion Finance NBL Quarterfinals/Semifinals Schedule
NBL Quarterfinals
Tuesday, June 10
QF1: 4th vs 5th, 7.40pm
Wednesday, June 11
QF2: 3rd vs 6th, 7.40pm
NBL Semifinals
Thursday, June 12
SF1: Century City Wellington Saints vs Winner QF1, 7.40pm
Friday, June 13
SF2: 2nd vs Winner QF2, 7.40pm
