Basketball: Tall Blacks thriller goes to overtime

The New Zealand men's basketball team went down to Turkey 70-69 in an overtime thriller in Istanbul yesterday.

In a tough encounter the Tall Blacks trailed 20-14 at the end of the first quarter, but they outscored the hosts 19-13 to level the scores 33-33 at halftime.

The Tall Blacks continued to dominate and took a 53-49 lead after the third quarter.

Few points were scored in the fourth spell as the game threatened to get out of hand.

Turkey outscored New Zealand 11-7 and after Kerem Gonlum was fouled and sank the two free throws on the final whistle, the game was plunged into overtime with the scores at 60-60.

New Zealand were hampered in the closing stages after captain Pero Cameron was fouled out in the fourth quarter.

Power forward Sean Marks joined him on the bench in overtime after also receiving his fifth warning.

A New Zealand victory appeared likely after a Mark Dickel three-pointer gave them a five-point advantage with 74 seconds remaining. But Orlando Magic NBA player Hedo Turkoglu had the final say. His three-pointer put Turkey back in the game and he bagged two points and a free throw after a foul by Dillon Boucher to steal the win.

Turkoglu finished with a game-high 22 points. For New Zealand, Kirk Penney had 21 and Dickel 10 points.

* The American team needed a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Allen Iverson from just across midcourt to pull out an 80-77 exhibition victory over Germany in Cologne.

A day after losing 95-78 to unheralded Italy, the US celebrated a last-gasp triumph against Germany as though they had won an NBA championship.

Germany failed to qualify for the Olympics.

The US play their first game in Athens against Puerto Rico on August 15.

- NZPA