Saints captain Hyrum Harris reflects on thrilling overtime buzzer beater

The Wellington Saints head into this weekend's round of the National Basketball League after booking a semifinal spot last week, in spectacular fashion.

Hyrum Harris sent the TSB Arena crowd into euphoria with an overtime buzzer beater to secure a tense 107-106 win over the Tuatara.

Harris caught up with Adam Cooper to relive the moment and look ahead to the Saints' next game against the Whai.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The weekends. Finally here, let's kick it off the All
Sports Breakfast with Ruther Thand and Bond Toyota and King Toyota.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
News Talks, EDB News talks on the All Sport Briefers.
Let's talk Wellington Saints basketball. They're back home at tesp
Arena tonight taking on the Fire after a thriller there
last weekend, a buzzer beater in overtime from Hiram Harris
to secure the win. The crowd went absolutely nuts and
Hiram's with us. Now I'm morning to your hirem What
are moments? How good was that?

Speaker 3 (00:28):
No, it's definitely those are a very good wins, those ones.
Those are the ones you kind of remember for a
long time. But now we're happy to We're happy to
come away with the win. A lot of the boys
pitched in and then obviously I just made the final shot,
but it was a team effort, so proud of that.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Can you talk us through what you remember of it.
I'm sure you've managed to watch it back a few times,
but just sort of being in that moment, knowing that
you're putting up a shot that can potentially win the game.
What what sort of do you how do you process
that moment at the very time.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
I think I processed that possessed it the wrong way
because I kind of assumed, Oh, the Boll's not going
to come to me, like I'm not going to be
open enough. So I think that kind of helped me
a little bit with my nerves to the point where
I didn't even expect I was going to get it.
So that probably helped my nerves a lot. But I think, yeah,
just came off, came off the backscreen. I was open

(01:23):
enough and luckily just made the shot.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Have you heard TSP Arena that loud before?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
No, it was actually funny. I watched the replay of it,
and I watched the fans go from sitting to standing
just from that one shot, and I think that's probably
the loudest I've ever experienced. TSB You know that that's
an awesome atmosphere to be in.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, so does the way you see it and you
watch it back, because does it play out differently into
in your mind as to how you actually remember it
being on court if you remember much of that moment.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
No, not really. I think it's just kind of what
I thought was actually is what happened. You know, it
wasn't like anything too crazy. It was just more of
a shock than I actually one I got an open
shot into that the shot winning. I was more shocked
at that, but it was good.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, I always got to get and went over to
a Tata as well, one of the benchmark teams, and
just you know, just by that that overtime one point
in the end, how tough was was the game overall?

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, Look, they're a Will coached team. They have a
lot of great players, like imports like Luthera Muhammad who's
been here and been in this league last year, AMBR
level players like Rob Low and Tommy v and all
those kind of guys. So they were always going to
be a tough challenge. But we knew if we kind
of backed ourselves and hunkered down on what we wanted

(02:38):
to do, we would come away with the win. And
you know, luckily it worked out for us.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
It's quite significant you've had the two wins over them.
Now you went up to Aukland a few weeks ago
and got the win over them. They're obviously one of
the main contenders, especially with the home semi final race
and things like that'd be pretty happy with with the
two sets of wins over them this season.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Yeah, for sure. I think they're definitely a playoff team
and it would shock me if we see them again
in playoffs.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
What's made you most proud of this team over the
last month or so? Obviously, you know, you go back
a month or so, there had been a couple of losses,
but on a pretty good stretch and now well placed
for the playoffs.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah, I think the thing that I've enjoyed most about
this last month is, you know, we've just had guys
go down and you know, people just step up. You know,
you see it like you see it like the game
just gone against the tour title. We you know, they
didn't play. So we had one of our young guys,
Keslou and Shunia step up and he you know, he

(03:32):
did his thing, held his own and kind of you know,
helped us get over that hump. And the same things
being said with guys like Shade going down. You know,
we've had other like Jordan Antai coming in, same Gold
coming in, so we've had a lot of like road bumps.
But I've just been proud of how this team's dealt
with those road bumps and moved forward on.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
A pretty good street now four wins in a row.
What do you think the team needs to focus on
at this point of the season, is, you know, things
get tighter, the playoff race comes of it further, I.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Think for us, and it's kind of been something we
try to work on and get better at every day.
Is kind of our complacency. Not not taking any team,
not taking any day, not taking any rep for granted,
you know, trying every trying to do everything with with
as best as we can, if it's even if it's
a rip, trying to run as fast as we can,
or you know, do those sorts of thing, not taking

(04:22):
it for granted. And same thing can be said for
teams like the Fight. You know, they're they're playoffs, They're
they're in a hunt for playoffs, for a playoff spot,
and you can ever take those teams too lightly. They're
all or nothing mentality against them.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
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