Monday, 24.07.2006	posted by Jeff Taylor 14:00 pm
Category: FIBA World Championship

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IT'S TIME TO RAISE YOUR GAME, TALL BLACKS

Tip your hat to the Tall Blacks. Pero Cameron and the boys sent shockwaves through the international basketball community four years ago when they reached the semi-finals of the FIBA World Championship in Indianapolis, but they are fed up with hearing about that success.

Coach Tab Baldwin and his players want some consistency. Otherwise, 2002 will be an anomaly. It will be a flash in the pan.

They don't want to hear, "Weren't those New Zealand guys great, punching above their weight?"

Baldwin does not have an embarrassment of riches like the United States, the Argentinians, the Brazilians or any of the traditional powerhouses in the European game. They have to be fully concentrated, and they have to fight. There is no other way.

New Zealand had a very good team at the Athens Olympics, but it went unnoticed by nearly everyone as they failed to reach the quarter-finals.

The Kiwis lost heart-breakers against eventual silver medalists Italy and eventual gold medalists Argentina.

They did beat two-time defending world champions Serbia & Montenegro, however, and afterward, Baldwin had to sit beside losing coach Zeljko Obradovic and listen to him berate the offficials without giving New Zealand any credit.

Something else that almost went unnoticed was the absolute resignation and disgust shown by the Tall Blacks as they trudged off the court after having their 'you-know-whats' handed to them by Australia in a classification game. What a way to finish the tournament, with a 98-80 drubbing by the Boomers.

I want New Zealand to be good again. Several times this season, I spoke to Phill Jones, their sweet-shooting, left-handed guard that spent the past couple of years at Vertical Vision Cantu.

Jones and his team-mates seem like normal guys, fellas you might have played ball against in the park. They don't trash-talk (unless we just can't hear it).

But 2002 is fading.

Brazil laid the wood to the Kiwis at the weekend, winning 105-89.

They beat 'em like a drum.

What did Baldwin have to say about that game?

"Brazil were tough right throughout, but as the game went on, they gained more control ... There were a lot of lessons to be taken from that game."

New Zealand, the simple fact of the matter is that right now, you are not very good. I say this, hoping that someone in the New Zealand camp will read it and tell everyone. I think the Tall Blacks need a kick up the backside.