KEY POINTS:
Watching Phill Jones' meltdown at last year's basketball world champs in Japan was like having a tooth pulled without the aid of anaesthetic - only more painful.
The Tall Blacks' go-to shooter for well over a decade, who had led the side in scoring during their dream run in Indianapolis four years earlier, just couldn't make a basket.
Time and again, match after match, the ball clattered off the rim. Jones' body language suggested a man slipping deeper into despair with each rim-out.
Sure, he wasn't the only Tall Black to suffer shooting woes in Japan. But if his teammates were blowing a little cold, Jones was frozen solid. The last moments of Robert Falcon Scott and Captain Oates would have been cosy by comparison.
In the 2002 campaign, Jones converted 63 of 126 shots, including 20 three-pointers. Four years later, he made just 16 baskets from 63 attempts, including seven three-pointers from 41 attempts at just 17 per cent.
"I'm pretty annoyed at the way I performed [in Japan], especially with the way I was playing before I went," said Jones, who tonight begins his quest for redemption in the first match of a three-test series against Venezuela.
"I didn't have a good tour of South America but I played great against the Aussies in the series before we went. When we got to South America, I don't know what happened but I just stopped shooting the ball well and I never really got it back. When we got to the worlds it was the same story, I just shot the ball very, very poorly.
"I don't remember doing that at all in my career, not like that. I felt like I let myself down as well as my teammates. I'd love to redeem myself for that and have a good final year."
Now in his 14th year with the Tall Blacks, the 33-year-old knows the clock is winding down on an international career that began, not just in a previous century, but in a different era.
"We used to turn up at the YMCA in Auckland, stay there a week and train. Then we'd go to Australia, stay in a backpackers, play, and then come home with three 50-point drubbings under our belts. Times have definitely changed.
"I remember when we used to go on trips to the States for a month and we'd have to pay a couple of thousand dollars each to go. Now we are getting paid to play. Guys are playing professionally for their living so they know what it is like to get out on the court and play to win.
"The mentality, the mindset, is totally different as well.
"We actually have a goal, a purpose. We used to go out on the court against Australia and everyone would say, 'Okay, let's try not to lose by 50'. Now it's like, 'We can beat these guys'. If we play well we have got a great chance to win."
This year's campaign will take the Tall Blacks to China, Latvia and Croatia before they touch down, match-hardened, for the crucial three-test series against the Boomers. Jones has also spent nine years plying his trade in Europe.
The globetrotting is a far cry from Jones' early days in Reefton on the South Island's rugged West Coast.
His first court was the Reefton Town Hall. The roof was so low that shots would bounce down off the ceiling. Lay-ups were also a risky affair, as the backboards were fixed to the walls.
With no junior sides to play in, Jones represented the West Coast's senior team at the age of 15. From there it was a year at Nelson College, during which he was spotted by the Giants, who signed him and teed him up with a job as a bank teller, which he kept for almost seven years.
Now his career has almost gone full circle.
The Venezuela series is the first step on a long road to next month's Olympic qualifying series against Australia. But even if the campaign is successful, there is no guarantee Jones will be on the plane to Beijing. Having recently signed a two-year contract to rejoin the Breakers for a second spell, Jones will have to weigh up whether the rigours of a third Olympic campaign might be a step too far.
This year's Tall Blacks camp has been the toughest ever. His body is starting to rebel. His family would like to see more of him too.
But, for now, one of the New Zealand game's most dedicated servants has unfinished business.
That bout of the yips in Japan? The problem, he says, was all in his head.
"Shooting is all mental. I've been doing it so long that the mechanical side shouldn't change too much. It's a mental block. If you get it in your head that you are missing shots and you let it start getting you down then it is a tough thing to do. But if you just don't think about it and play your natural game then you find that shots start dropping."
Jones is confident they'll do exactly that in the big games ahead.
Phill Jones
Age: 33
Height: 1.96m
Position: Guard
Teams: NZ Breakers, Nelson Giants
NBL titles: 2 (1994, 1998)
Tall Blacks debut: 1994
The road ahead
Tonight: Tall Blacks v Venezuela, Napier
Sunday: Tall Blacks v Venezuela, Wellington
Tuesday: Tall Blacks v Venezuela, Wellington
July 26-August 3: Boris Stankovic Cup, China
August 4-7: Tour to Latvia
August 12-14: Tour to Croatia
August 20: Tall Blacks v Australia (FIBA Oceania qualification series), Melbourne
August 22: Tall Blacks v Australia (OQS), Sydney
August 24: NZ Tall Blacks v Australia (OQS), Brisbane
