By Peter Jessup
The Tall Blacks opened their Olympic basketball campaign with a better-than-creditable 72-58 win over Canada in a physical encounter at the North Shore Events Centre last night.
The Canadians started slowly but came back to press the home side, with a capacity crowd of 2500 lifting the Tall Blacks.
New
Zealand's Toronto Raptor player, Sean Marks, was the crowd favourite but found the going hard against a Canuck outfit who employed push-and-shove and jersey-grabbing tactics to slow the game.
Three times he was sent to the floor under the basket but it was his steals and rebounds that helped to keep New Zealand out in front.
"It was frustrating and I was a little rusty after not playing for a couple of months but boy, it was fun," Marks said after beating the world's 12th-ranked team.
Phill Jones top-scored for New Zealand with 15. Ralph Lattimore had 11 and a rejuvenated Peter Pokai had nine, with Marks on eight.
The Canadians were not really with it after the tip-off, their dropped balls, missed passes and muffed shots allowing the home side out to a 12-2 lead after five minutes.
Marks drew a big cheer when he came from the bench to replace Pero Cameron, who had a hard, physical confrontation with his opposite, Richard Anderson, both collecting early foul calls.
Marks scored his first points for the Tall Blacks from the foul line when he was shoved while lining up to shoot, but the crowd really opened up when he swung from the basket to record his first two-pointer from the field.
The New Zealand defence was good, forcing Canada to shoot from the outside. But they were good at that, taking five three-pointers for a halftime score of 44-35.
The second spell was slower as both sides cramped the mid-court but Canada had no easy response to tough New Zealand defence.
