Daryl Mitchell of the Black Caps Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The Black Caps are not in panic mode yet, but realise a vastly improved performance is needed if they are to avoid an early exit from the T20 World Cup.
Coach Gary Stead said the challenge for his players was to produce a performance they could be proud of.
The Black Caps were coming off a humbling first up effort, beaten by Afghanistan by 84 runs in Guyana.
"The performance we put out (against Afghanistan) isn't a train smash in terms of confidence, you can put it down to a bad game," Stead told a pre-match media conference.
"All we can do is control how we go about it now and making sure that we're very clear on our roles and how we want to play."
After being put into bat Afghanistan scored 159/6 which included a century opening partnership.
In reply, New Zealand's top ordered failed, bowled out for 75 in the 16th over.
Stead said they could not dwell too much on the first up defeat.
"The danger is you take what happened in the last game and bring it into this one where it's completely different, our challenge is to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off and make sure that the next performance we put in is something that we should be proud of.
"We know things are stacked against us at the moment but that's the challenge. We now have to go out there and put in a performance we're proud of.
"For us this is essentially a knock out game so we've got to give it everything we can."
Stead said with different conditions in Trinidad and Tobago for the West Indies game on Thursday (12:30pm NZT) there would be a different side selected.
New Zealand player Mitchell Santner and head coach Gary Stead Photo: PHOTOSPORT
He expected the ball to swing more, however there would not be widespread changes, it would be more about changes for the conditions and the opposition.
"I think one of the dangers is that if you chop and change too much it does look like you're panicking a bit.
"We know what's in front of us, we have to win three games and we have to win them well so that is what our focus is about."
The West Indies were level with Afghanistan at the top of the group after winning their first two games.
"They're an unpredictable team," said Stead.
"They've got a lot of power through their batting order so our plans around how we nullify that will go a long way to how the game might play out."
Stead said the history of the ground in recent years did not suggest there would be a lot of runs.
"I don't expect it to be very high scoring.
"I think it's important for us to have our bases covered and the players that can probably provide spin and seam so making sure we get that balance right will be important for us."
The games starts at 12:30pm on Thursday.