Tall Blacks. Photo: Andrew Cornaga/www.photosport.nz
The Tall Blacks fell to a one-point loss at the SuperCup in Germany on Sunday night, beaten 69-68 by China in their final friendly of the pre World Cup tournament.
The Tall Blacks pushed out to an early 20-12 lead in the first thanks to back-to-back layups from Flynn Cameron, taking a 39-31 lead into halftime on the back of solid shooting from the field.
China's Li Kaier asserted this dominance in the third, scoring eight straight points to reduce the deficit to five, before three pointers from Cameron and Finn Delany pushed New Zealand's the lead back out to 11.
With a 54-50 lead heading into the fourth, the Tall Blacks struggled to execute in the final six minutes.
They went just 2-10 from the floor with Reuben Te Rangi scoring their only points as the Tall Blacks were outscored 10-4 during that period.
Turnovers were again the achilles heel for New Zealand with 21 miscues on the night - none more costly than China's steal with eight seconds remaining while holding a one point lead, giving China their first win of the tournament.
New Zealand's top scorers were Finn Delany (12 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists) and Flynn Cameron (12 points, 4 rebounds).
Isaac Fotu and Jordan Ngatai tallied 9 points and 4 rebounds apiece, Izayah Le'afa with 7 and Yanni Wetzell with 6.
For China, their star was NBA player Li Kaier (a.k.a. Kyle Anderson) who registered 18 points, 5 rebounds and 4 steals on the night.
Tall Blacks head coach, Pero Cameron lamented his team's late-game execution down the stretch.
"Lot of discipline [issues] for us, a bit more experience in games needed; we've just got to have a bit more of a killer attitude and finishing off these games and we didn't - we struggled in the last 10-12 possessions," says Cameron.
"Learning is learning, and also winning gives you a little bit of confidence to move onto the next stage. And we've got our biggest tournament [the FIBA World Cup] coming up in a week or so and we need to be ready. It would've been good to get this win, so we're going to look at some things before we go into our next phase - we've got to be better."
The Tall Blacks now head to China for the final phase of their World Cup preparation, taking on a Shenzhen China team in a friendly on 18 August before participating in the FIBA Solidarity Cup from 20-21 August, where they face Italy.