Melbourne United face a nervous wait on the fitness of Chris Goulding after the guard suffered an ankle injury in their final game before the NBL finals series.
Goulding rolled his ankle late in the third quarter of Sunday's 94-84 loss to the Illawarra Hawks at Hisense Arena.
He sat out the rest of the match, leaving him in serious doubt to play for Australia in their upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
But Melbourne United coach Dean Vickerman played down concerns of any serious injury to his start shooting guard and expects him to be available for their opening semi-final game against the New Zealand Breakers in Melbourne on March 3.
"The medical advice to me was to not play him again but it didn't seem like it was too bad," Vickerman told reporters after the match.
While Goulding appears unlikely to play for the Boomers in Thursday night's qualifier against the Philippines, Vickerman has no reservations about Goulding taking part if deemed fit to play.
"I think it's an absolute honour for any one of our players to get national representation," Vickerman said.
"If they are healthy they should be playing for their country so that's the medical staff's decision."
Vickerman felt that Goulding benefitted greatly from his Boomers experience during the first series of World Cup qualifiers in November.
"I thought he went into that Boomers program after he struggled a little with us but he came out the other side and he had a great period off that break until now so ... love him representing his country," he said.
After seeing their seven-match winning streak ended by the Hawks, United centre Josh Boone will use the FIBA break to prepare both physically and mentally for the NBL play-offs.
"We have been playing great basketball and we wanted to try to continue the way we've been going and I don't think we really passed the mental test tonight," Boone said.
"I think we got some work to do over this break. I think we are still in a pretty good position.
"Going into the play-offs with the first seed is always good but we can always get better and it showed tonight that there are some areas to improve."
