KEY POINTS:
Tall Blacks 95
Venezuela 78
The Tall Blacks survived some more rough-and-tumble tactics from a willing Venezuela to wrap up the three-match series in Wellington yesterday.
New Zealand won another physical encounter to take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series ahead of the final match in Wellington tomorrow.
Captain Pero Cameron's side had to work harder yesterday than in their 99-73 win over Venezuela in the first test in Napier.
Venezuela again brought with them a gameplan reliant on physical commitment but in Hector Romero, in particular, they had an offensive force with subtlety to complement force.
Despite trailing 3-11 early on after Cameron inspired a hot opening for New Zealand, Venezuela refused to go away, trailing 20-23 at the end of the first quarter and 39-46 at halftime.
An upset was not an impossibility at that stage but New Zealand came out firing after the intermission, finding their range from beyond the arc to stretch out to 63-47 after a succession of three-pointers from Kirk Penney, Lindsay Tait and Mika Vukona.
The game was in safe keeping well before the end of the third quarter, as New Zealand showed why they are ranked at No 12 in the world compared to Venezuela's No 21.
There was again a physical edge to the match, but nothing like Napier where the first test threatened to boil over on a number of occasions.
The Venezuelans showed more composure but again came out on the wrong end of a sound beating, their young side struggling to adapt after the Tall Blacks changed their emphasis following coach Nenad Vucinic's halftime pep talk.
While happy to file away his first series victory after succeeding Tab Baldwin as coach, Vucinic was unconvinced about his team's performance and believed their sound win in Napier possibly gave his players a false sense of superiority.
"I think after a good start in the first few minutes that we had a problem with motivation," Vucinic said.
"Venezuela were out-hustling us. They had a lot of offensive rebounds and three-point plays.
"We picked the intensity up in the second half when our boxing out and rebounding was much better."
For the fourth quarter, Vucinic introduced star forward Craig Bradshaw, who joined his teammates after a spell in the United States.
Bradshaw celebrated his homecoming by sinking his first attempt, a two-pointer from depth.
Bradshaw was vigorous, making his presence felt under the basket as he gave the Tall Blacks a bristling physical presence previously lacking, although his lack of understanding of Vucinic's new team plays led to a number of breakdowns on offence.
For all that, Penney was clearly their best, his 25 points second only to Venezuelan captain Romero's 27.
The New Zealand scoring was spread about, with Vukona contributing 15, Casey Frank 14 and Tait 10, while Romero's main helpers were Miguel Marriaga with 12 and Keving Palacios with 10.
It was a far from perfect performance and Vucinic thought it a timely reminder for his charges.
"Defensively, if you don't show up with intensity for the whole 40 minutes you are going to pay the price.
"Venezuela are a very physical team and they are bigger than us. That cannot be an excuse for us, though, because every team in the world's top 20 are bigger than us."
- NZPA
