Punahou's Zayne Chong puts up a layup against Kalaheo CJ Caraang | SL

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The Punahou boys basketball team gave its coach something to celebrate for his birthday over the weekend.

The Buffanblu opened the preseason by notching wins over OIA East teams Moanalua (59-33), Farrington (64-33) and Kalaheo (64-54) over four days at the James Alegre Invitational.

With a slew of returning talent, Punahou should be in the mix for the top overall spot in the first ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Boys Basketball Power Rankings of the season — not that it is of any concern to coach Darren Matsuda.

"It's just the beginning," Matsuda said prior to Friday night's game versus the Governors. "We're further along this year than last year just because a lot of guys return, but it's still definitely a work in progress. We're really working our defense right now and trying to just play the right way on offense, but things are going to be really raw right now on offense, just because it's brand new to a log of guys."

The work on defense is clearly paying off for the Buffanblu, who forced 25 turnovers by the Mustangs Saturday.

Punahou's suffocating defense didn't see much, if any, drop off from its first to second units and helped erase a five-point first-quarter deficit. The second unit gave a big boost in energy with numerous steals on defense and offensive rebounds that more often than not led to second-chance points.

For Matsuda it all comes down to effort.

"We focus on our attitude and effort, because those are the things that we can control and one of our hallmarks of our program is to focus on controlling what you can control," said Matsuda, who has the luxury of routinely going 13 or 14 players deep in a game.

Lots of bodies means lots of fresh legs and fouls — which Punahou needed Saturday as it was whistled for 28 of them — but also limited opportunities.

Junior guard Zayne Chong made the most of his opportunity against Kalaheo. He came off the bench to score 12 points — second only to Chris Kobayashi's game-high 27 — and had his hand in several steals on the defensive end.

Surely to the delight of his coach, Chong said it all started on that end of the court.

"We were just playing good defense, on-the-line good defense and listening to our coaches and buying into what they had to say," said Chong, who was part of a second unit that also included Maninoa Tufono, Tamatoa Falatea, Beau Whitaker and Cole Mausolf.

Kobayashi, who hit five 3-pointers in the game, said the first and second units feed off of each other in both games and practices.

"We know that we have to start off strong for the second group and kind of set an example for them, and then when they come in and they do their thing it's really energetic for us because we get our energy back and when we come back in we keep feeling that and it's a nice flow that kind of keep going," Kobayashi said.

The Buffanblu overcame two big runs by the Mustangs in the first half, including a 15-3 run that turned a 12-5 Punahou lead into a 20-15 deficit.

"Our coaches really stressed this year to ‘win the moment.' That's kind of our team theme, so we just wanted to do that," Kobayashi said. "We knew they were a good team and they were going to make runs, but it was about the way we answered. It was a good test for us. It was our first close game in the fourth quarter, so we did a good job coming away with the W."

Matsuda, who celebrated his 45th birthday Friday, won't allow his team to enjoy the win for very long, as another stiff test looms in the form of Kahuku Monday.

"I think this was a good learning game for us," Matsuda said. "I think games like this one and the one at Kahuku Monday, it just benefits you to play really, really good teams like these guys. We're not nearly where we want to be, but a lot of the stuff that I see at this point of the season is positive, so we're looking forward to keep going."