By PETER JESSUP
Tall Black captain Pero Cameron was nursing a sore calf after his team thrashed the Czech Republic 89-65 in the third test to take the series 2-1, but he was beaming.
"It proves it was no fluke," he said.
"It" was beating Australia, being competitive at the Sydney Olympics and
in the series against Hungary last year, then going on to be fourth in the world championships at Indianapolis.
It's a big time for basketball with the prospect of the world championships being held in Australasia in 2010, so Cameron's team have to stay up.
He's only 29. So is star shooter Phill Jones. The rest are mid-20s, so there's every reason to expect the squad to hang together and get better.
Twenty or more players will be in the mix for the Athens Olympics next year and the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006, Cameron says.
"That's good. It keeps pressure on everyone."
The Tall Blacks' development made huge strides during the Czech tour.
They were outplayed in Christchurch, unable to adjust to the zone defence the much taller Czechs used to protect their hoop.
Jones top-scored with 28, hitting five out of 10 three-point attempts.
But his team-mates managed only five from 29 attempts.
The Tall Blacks shot 39 field-goal attempts from outside the paint and 32 from inside, a measure of their inability to get close.
Everyone apart from Jones had a cold hand, and the accuracy rate was well down on what it had been in training.
But coach Tab Baldwin said he was pleased to see the ball coming off the back of the rim rather than falling short because that was the sign of a confident shooter.
The rest would never shoot as badly again, he reckoned.
He was right.
In the second game, in Invercargill, they made 52.2 per cent of their shots, of which 35 were inside the paint and 25 outside.
The difference was the return of Cameron, left out of the first test with a calf strain he's had for months.
He played only just over 11 minutes, but much of it was at the start and his presence under the post and ability to find the most open shooter quickly had the Tall Blacks out to a 10 point-plus lead that they never looked like relinquishing.
Best quote of the tour came from Baldwin after the second test when he was decrying the physical contest and the slowed scoring in the last quarter, which had a rash of holding, interference and fouls.
"God knows, I've given the referees enough advice over the years and they've listened to 0.2 per cent of it," he said.
"I was pretty disgusted with it, and I hold the referees responsible for that," he said of the game.
But when he then added, "I'll be happy if I never see another game like that," he had to be kidding and everyone knew it. He had won, and Baldwin loves winning.
And the rugby-minded Invercargill crowd loved it, elbows to the ribs and all.
The 2400 at Stadium Southland were the noisiest fans of the tour, which started with 4500 in Christchurch and finished with a 3300 sellout at Hamilton's Mystery Creek.
Czech coach Michal Jezdik gave the refs his fair share of commentary during all three games.
He had no complaints afterwards, about them or the physical nature of the last two games.
"It was our ideal to play the No 4 team in the world," he said.
"We are building, we want to be in the European championships and the Olympics and the world championships, so we have to play all styles."
He had watched the Tall Blacks' matches at Indianapolis, and knew something of what to expect in terms of the push-and-shove in the New Zealand and Australian game.
He didn't think the matches got too rough or that the whistlers let them get out of hand.
The referees in New Zealand had a different style, he said, and that was also a learning experience.
"They were fair and consistent - what else do you want?"
His young team had to learn to adapt to different refereeing styles as they did playing styles.
The Czechs left four of their best players at home after a long national league season.
The Tall Blacks were without tallest forward Tony Rampton, No 1 guard Sean Marks, Minnesota Timberwolves triallist Kirk Penney, and their best defender, Dillon Boucher, who was ill.
The new boys really stood out in the last two tests.
Mike Homik made big inroads in Invercargill and Aaron Olson hit the threes he had missed in game one.
Lindsay Tait made a solid debut that would have been more confidence-inspiring had his first attempt at a three-pointer after he had gathered a loose ball gone down.
Miles Pearce was tough on the inside.
In test three it was Brendon Polyblank who stepped up to top-score with 13.
Olson shot well again and, after a slow start, so did Paul Henare, who played with all his usual intensity, despite a wrist injury.
Jones scored only seven. The Czechs had him triple-ganged, which left others open, and they responded with the best scoring spread of the series.
Pearce had promised that he was going to dunk and he did.
Mark Dickel said they were going to grind the Czechs up and they did.
The aim of the tour was development, Baldwin said at the start. He got it.
By PETER JESSUP
Tall Black captain Pero Cameron was nursing a sore calf after his team thrashed the Czech Republic 89-65 in the third test to take the series 2-1, but he was beaming.
"It proves it was no fluke," he said.
"It" was beating Australia, being competitive at the Sydney Olympics and
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