Basketball On The Internet.

HOW good a story is the rapidly developing "Legend of Daryl Corletto?''

It is a gem.

Mucked around two years ago by Melbourne Tigers - where he had been a loyal servant, great foot soldier and canny long-range assassin over many campaigns - he was the pawn moved around and eventually off the board to accommodate Patrick Mills.

Having just lost super-scorer Kirk Penney to the lure of Europe, New Zealand's first title defence needed another scoring option and Breakers coach Andrej Lemanis swept in, snapping up DC.

Who knew then that years of scrimmaging against and defending stars such as Daryl McDonald, Andrew Gaze, Nathan Crosswell, Lanard Copeland et al at practice, could only have meant Corletto had far more to offer than his brief glimpses of daylight at Melbourne had ever afforded?

You couldn't call Lemanis' decision a gamble, or even a calculated gamble.

No. It was a lifeline to a fine player who had been content to be a career Tiger until his own club took advantage of him once too often.

Few could have deserved to celebrate New Zealand's 2012 championship with more gusto.

But the story only got better again today when Corletto led the Breakers with 19 points at 70 per cent shooting, including landing 3-of-5 long-range ballistic missiles in their 79-67 Game 1 Grand Final win in Auckland.

"His offensive numbers were obviously very good, but he also took on the challenge of guarding (Kevin) Lisch for a lot of the game and I thought he did a good job there,'' Lemanis said.

Well of course. Would Lisch be any more daunting than Gaze? D-Mac?

Though, of course, much more was at stake.

"During the season when we played Perth, personally I probably haven't had the right mindset,'' Corletto said post-game. "I had a shocker the last time we played in Perth.

"It was about getting a little bit of revenge and coming up with the right mindset.''

Mind, set and match.

CAN I just point out that having no particular allegiance in the iiNet NBL Championship Series makes the erratic nature of the officiating stand out even more?

It gives you the license to feel for both clubs when you see a ridiculous unsportsmanlike foul called on a fairly decent shot-block (Mika Vukona on Kevin Lisch), or watch as Lisch drives to the hoop to be hammered to the floor for a no-call.

Yes, these are our top referees and truthfully, I respect them all. Their job is split-second and thankless.

But as New Zealand was putting the finishing touches today on its 79-67 Game 1 win in the Grand Final at Vector Arena, I couldn't help think how dangerous it becomes when refs buy into that "it's much more physical in finals'' BS that always gets trotted out this time of year.

"They won't get that call in the finals,'' etcetera is the common refrain, especially of TV callers, because we all come to expect playoff intensity will go up a number of levels.

That is as it should be and there was plenty of intensity out on the Vector Arena floor for sure.

But intensity should not be confused with undue or inappropriate physicality or over-aggression and that development sits squarely in the domain of the three men wearing whistles.

It's not that they did a bad job per se. But I'm not sure which of the coaches would have been happy.

Maybe Gordie McLeod and Shane Heal.

PERTH opened with a sharp 6-0 run which became 9-2 on a Greg Hire three.

But it was downhill from there, with the Wildcats' scoring clip falling to 28 per cent, Cedric Jackson tying the contest at 12-12 and the snowball in motion.

"I thought defensively they took us out of a lot of our structures pretty early, and we forced too many perimeter shots rather than moving the ball like we do,'' Perth coach Rob Beveridge said.

"That was not the Wildcats.''

Well they'll need to show up in Perth on Friday then.

The two clubs' fifth meeting of 2012-13 was also the fifth time the margin has been decided by double digits, an unusual anomaly for two such close teams.

Grand Final - Game 1
NEW ZEALAND BREAKERS 79 (D Corletto 19 C Jackson 14 M Vukona 10) d PERTH WILDCATS 67 (K Lisch 19 S Redhage 17 M Knight 13) at Vector Arena
(New Zealand Breakers lead best-of-three series 1-0)