The New Zealand men's basketball team has beaten Mexico 78-67 for their second straight win at the Stankovic Cup tournament in China.
Tall Blacks swingman Tom Abercrombie Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The win was secured on the back of an impressive final quarter after the Tall Blacks had stumbled their way through the opening three quarters of the match, with the vast majority of the 25 turnovers occurring before the final ten minute spell.
Tom Abercrombie topped the scoring with 25 points.
Coach Paul Henare was both disappointed and pleased with the performance.
Henare says they were disappointing in the first three quarters of the match, there were too many turnovers, they were too anxious in possession and not executing their plays.
"When we stuck to the playbook and trusted our systems, we were fine, but too often we went off on a tangent and allowed Mexico too much latitude - and they are a very good team that doesn't need our help."
But Henare says he's pleased with the way they responded in the final quarter. "We put a young group out (for)...10 minutes and then our starters were able to get the job done in the final few minutes against some good pressure."
"We have to be better though, the win is great, but we have to play better and look after the ball. 25 turnovers is clearly just too many, we will go away and look at the edits and do some more work to get it right."
Captain Mika Vukona returned to the side after sitting out the opening day win over Venezuela, and he echoed his coach in the aftermatch interviews.
"25 turnovers showed we stuttered along, but the guys that ended the game did a great job and showed that while we have suffered some close losses on this tour, we are able to learn from that and close one out, but too many turnovers put us in that situation, we have to fix that."
Vukona also paid tribute to his club and national team-mate Tom Abercrombie after he lit up the stadium with a spectacular dunk in the closing minutes to seal the deal, extending the Tall Blacks' lead to five with 1:10 to play.
"Anytime anybody can make a play like that the energy will flow through the team. It was an amazing play and at the end of the day the only player who can do that is Tom Abercrombie, it was awesome to see that."
Abercrombie led all scorers in his best game on tour, finishing with 25 points on seven of 11 with two from three from deep.
He received good support from Corey Webster, who was again judicious in his shot-making, picking up 15 points on a six of 12 display.
Isaac Fotu had another respectable night with eight points and seven boards while 17-year-old Tai Wynyard showed glimpses of his potential with some good touches in the paint in just under 10 minutes of play. They were crucial minutes with Fotu, Vukona and Loe all in foul trouble early in the second half.
Their next game is against China on Thursday night.
