Basketball: Senior trio ready to boost flagging Tall Blacks

A horrendous travel itinerary caught up with the Tall Blacks as they lost an 18-point lead to fall 74-77 to Belarus in the first match of a four-nation basketball tournament in Latvia yesterday.

After 26 hours en route from Hong Kong to the Latvian capital of Riga - via London and Copenhagan - the team checked into their hotel about midnight the night before the opening game of their brief European visit.

They got off to a slow start but had built a 34-24 halftime lead and stretched it into the third period before the wheels fell off.

Some good news was that Pero Cameron and Dillon Boucher both returned from injury, with Cameron logging a team-high 26 minutes.

Point guard Mark Dickel also joined the squad after missing the recent series against Venezuela and the Boris Stankovic Continental Cup in China last week.

In their second game this morning the Tall Blacks were to face Lithuania, ranked fifth in the world, who lost 83-84 to hosts Latvia.

- NZPA