Basketball On The Internet.

POST-playing days, Jamar Wilson should consider a career as a basketball analyst.

The dual-Cairns Taipans club MVP - and likely headed for another club MVP award for his season with Adelaide - Wilson predicted New Zealand would win the NBL Championship and regain the Dr John Raschke Trophy in a 2-0 best-of-three Grand Final sweep.

But he left open the door too, saying if Cairns could bring the series home for a decider, the momentum swing and return-of-belief for the Taipans would bring the title to north Queensland for the first time.

That's exactly the scenario now as the teams wait to hit the hardwood at Vector Arena in Auckland, New Zealand 1-0 ahead and on a title-bound roll.

While only Orange Army fans had Cairns winning in two - "We'll overwhelm them at home, then get them again in Auckland just like we did in the last round of the season" - they now abundantly are aware of this stark reality.

New Zealand IS the form team of the finals.

It didn't sneak past Adelaide in its semi final series in the manner Cairns got by a depleted and hurting Perth outfit.

It belted the in-form 36ers by 39 points in Auckland - and the Sixers came in on the season's best roll with 10 straight wins.

Then the Breakers ambled into Adelaide and won by 11 - and in truth, far more comfortably than that margin reflected.

New Zealand took out the team on the best streak going into the playoffs by an average of 25 points.

Then it flew into Cairns and a sold-out, hostile environment, and again comfortably won by 15.

If not for an exemplary 26-11 third period which brought Cairns back to within a point - and similarly was matched and erased by the Breakers' 25-11 final quarter to set up the 86-71 win - this too would have been more of a blow out.

It is the Taipans who are back at the drawing-board, trying to find a way to stall the Breaker juggernaut.

Just as Wilson called in his series preview for me at News Corp, Cedric Jackson was the key, his 22-point, seven-rebound, three-assist, steal and block putting one hand onto the Larry Sengstock MVP Medal.

He made his Taipans counterpart Scottie Wilbekin look a bit like a rookie, apart from his third quarter.

Wilbekin's 16 points came on 4-of-14 shooting.

In fact the way Matt Burston started - scoring, rebounding, scrapping - he looked as if, having done it all before for his Championship ring at the Dragons, he was going to have to lead the way.

Fellow past champion, Stephen Weigh, went for six points.

It clearly was a way too emotional night for the Taipans.

Ekene Ibekwe menaced them all game, en route to 19 points at 80 per cent, plus a game-high eight rebounds and two blocks.

He only blocked two, but he changed a lot more.

Then Rhys Carter - another champion with the Dragons - showed New Zealand the way home with a sizzling last quarter that, in itself, was better than anything he manufactured in two finals against the 36ers.

The Breakers stepped up to the plate like old hands at this caper, and basically showed the new kids on the block how it is done.

If they didn't learn the lesson, they have no chance today and even if they did, the Breakers are on quite a roll now and still will take some stopping.

Should the Taipans muster an upset - and that's what it would be now in Auckland - then yes, the momentum most definitely shifts significantly.

But right now, it is hard to see the series going beyond this afternoon.

THE less said about the television coverage over the past two weeks, the better.

It's not that the calls have been bad - though listening to that fun version of vowel-substitution-English today will be interesting, as always - but the technical glitches have been legion.

Let's not even talk Game 2 of the Cairns-Perth semi in Perth. A shocker.

But hey, ONE at least acknowledged and had the ultra-efficient Michelle Trewartha interview Lindsay Gaze at halftime in Cairns.

The elder Gaze was there to present the Coach of the Year award, and a couple of others, post-game to the Taipans (another stroke of NBL management genius).

A legend of the game, Gaze Snr assuredly is, being in every worthwhile basketball Hall of Fame there is.

So it is wonderful the graphics people went out of their way to let us know Gaze is a legend.

Pity they couldn't spell the legend's name correctly.

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