Basketball: Qatar may spring surprise

Qatar will not lack confidence for their two-test men's basketball series against New Zealand, starting tomorrow night in Dunedin.

The two countries have identical assignments in the series as they complete preparations for the world championship starting in Japan on August 19.

And Qatar are starting to believe they could be the surprise package in group C in Japan where they will play Greece, Lithuania, Brazil, Turkey and Australia.

They have upped their game in the past fortnight, running Turkey close in Turkey before mixed results in a tournament at home in Doha featuring Angola, Latvia and the Philippines.

Coach Joey Stiebing is happy with where his team are at ahead of the series in New Zealand, which ends with the second test in Invercargill on Sunday.

He told the fiba.com website that his side had shown they could foot it with world championship teams.

Qatar lost the quadrangular tournament semifinal to Angola on Saturday 62-75 before beating the Philippines 79-68 in the playoff for third.

Stiebing said he wanted a more clinical edge against the Tall Blacks, who are coming off a tough tour of south America where they lost six of seven matches amidst a gruelling travel schedule.

"You also need to know how to score and when to score," Stiebing said.

"We take what we think is a good shot but it's really a bad shot, a quick shot. We've got to learn to rely more on our teammates to get people free and be able to hit big shots at big moments."

Stiebing, the Qatar coach since 2003, has tried to build his team into a sound defensive unit and feels that is now their biggest asset.

"I think our strength is our ability to defend," he said.

"When we can defend, we will be able to compete with most teams."

He said his side's playing schedule of late could only benefit them.

"We've played some good teams," Stiebing said.

"We played Turkey in front of a packed house (in Turkey) and we lost in overtime in a game we should have won in regulation.

"We then played Angola twice, who are very athletic, very strong compared to our team ...

"That was two world championship teams I think we can compete with and we've proved it. Now we've just go to be able to do the small things to close out a win."

- NZPA