Basketball: Ready for a slam dunking

By PETER JESSUP

How do you prepare the New Zealand basketball team, value to the game around $1 million, to play the American Dream Team, insured for $1.6 billion ?

You don't.

Coach Keith Mair knows his team is one step away from a hiding to nothing, and accepts there is little he can do.

"It's an immense challenge. We just have to try and do the things that make us as good as we can be.

"In basketball it's impossible to stop the other team scoring, it's not like soccer or hockey where you can just shut down.

"As soon as they [the US] get the ball they're going to be off to the races."

An opponent the two teams have had in common at this tournament is China. The Tall Blacks were beaten by China 60-75 and the Chinese were beaten 72-119 by the Americans.

So Mair reckons a 50-point bath would be an exceptional effort from New Zealand.

"I really just want them to enjoy the game and if they go out and do their best, are not over-awed by getting on the court with those guys, play our own game, that's as good as we can be."

The only Tall Black familiar with this level is Sean Marks, and his time on court has been limited in Toronto. The others have been asking him what the opposition are like, how they play and the moves they make under certain situations.

"I've contributed a bit but when it comes down to scouting the Dream Team - well, it's an impossible task.

"Anything we do to try and stop them, they'll counter it, simply and quickly."

He is not worried by the possible scoreline. "If we play hard, pick our game up again like we have been, get tough on defence, we'll be happy."

Most will have relatives in the crowd primed with video and still cameras to preserve the memory of playing the impossible dream.

Marks has suffered from a stomach virus in recent days and was well short of his best for the previous game, against Italy, having been throwing up the night before.

"I'll be fine for this one ... I'm looking forward to it, for sure."

The Tall Blacks' performance, in their first game, against France, was very ordinary. They played to the best of their ability against China. Then they tested Italy, prompting the Italian coach Bogdan Tanjevic to make the comment that his team had to play very well to win.

"We really had to sweat and toil," Tanjevic said. "We didn't give our utmost but that was also because of the way New Zealand played. We were fortunate they got tired because of their pace in the first half and started making mistakes."

Phill Jones said the team had "put their hearts on the floor and that is something different for New Zealand basketball."

They'll need more than their hearts on the floor for Saturday night's game (2030 NZT).

Mair's main concern is to see the level they have reached at the Olympic tournament maintained by more frequent international competition in future.

The whole squad, though, is thriving on the impact they know their effort is drawing to the sport in rugby-mad New Zealand.