Basketball: Tall Blacks finally 'beginning to gel'

After some disjointed earlier performances at the world basketball championships in Japan, the Tall Blacks are finally beginning to gel, coach Tab Baldwin says.

The Tall Blacks earned themselves a place in the final 16 when they beat Panama 86-75 last night. The win was their second at the championships after a scratchy 60-57 victory over Japan following three losses in a row to Spain, Germany and Angola.

While pleased with the win, Baldwin said there was still plenty to work on before the Tall Blacks meet Olympic champions Argentina on Saturday.

"We're still look a little bit out of sync. Some of the passes haven't been going to hand and some of the execution, both in transition and half court offence is not finding the mark," he said after the match.

Led by captain Pero Cameron, the Tall Blacks worked calmly and steadily and never looked in danger of losing.

They led the first quarter 31-25, increased it to 48-38 by halftime and maintained the cushion 65-54 at three quarter time.

Craig Bradshaw topscored for New Zealand with 17 points, including two three-pointers, with Kirk Penney not far behind with 16 and Cameron 14.

Bradshaw was New Zealand's liveliest player but was well supported by Phil Jones, Paul Henare, Casey Frank and Mark Dickel.

As against Japan, Cameron nailed some three-pointers at crucial times, succeeding with four from seven, to regain their double-figure lead each time Panama found some momentum through Dionsio Gomez and Jamie Lofreda.

Point guard and playmaker Dickel, who joined the team in the comeback win over Japan, reinforced the New Zealand defence with several steals and seven points to his credit.

Last night's game was characterised by good individual performances, Baldwin said.

"It was good to see Craig Bradshaw shooting the ball well and coming out of his shell more and more, and Kirk Penney shot the ball well again."

However, the Tall Blacks were running out of time to get their game right.

"We have one training session and we have to get it right because, obviously with Argentina there's not a heck of a lot of room for error."

Although it was good to notch up another win, Baldwin said there was plenty to learn from the Panama game.

"It's tough to completely put the performances behind us and feel good about the way we performed, but we have to do that now and we have to learn from the way we played and get better in order to be successful in the next round."

Baldwin said the team would be comfortable going into the Argentina game as underdogs.

"That's nothing new to us. We don't mind being an underdog and we don't mind other teams looking at us like 'why are we even on the floor with them', and in fact that always has been an added incentive for us and at times has made us better," he said

New Zealand and Argentina play at 1pm (NZ time) tomorrow.

- NZPA