An Alley Oop To International Hoops #4
It hurts my ears to hear mainly Americans talk down upon New Zealand and the Tall Blacks. It's something we're not really used to in sports cos we're freakin' awesome but after three first up losses, we were just a team of nothingness.
Now, we're riding a hot streak. The wave of victory, we're riding that tube like it could be our last and we are moving on to the round of 16 thanks to a glorious 67-65 victory over Finland. She was a nail biter this one, the Tall Blacks got off to a good start, winning the first 3 quarters rather easily before the Fin's came back in the 4th and almost tied things up with the last shot of the game. But it wasn't to be.
Coach Nenad Vucinic will be pretty happy with how his team has bounced back from their average start and thanks to guys like Isaac Fotu, he'll be celebrating solid contributions all round. Any big lad who can shoot jumpers is going to be a handy asset and Fotu was again on point shooting 6/8 2's and stroking a 3 pointer. When you consider that Fotu and Kirk Penney were the only blokes to score in double figures, it's pretty impressive. Shout out to Mika Vukona who grabbed 11 defensive rebounds as well #MIKA!
The Tall Blacks weren't super duper amazing but they won a must winner (watch and learn Warriors). We're still waiting and hoping that they can put in a performance of all round class, we could be left sitting, waiting, wishing for the entire tournament but if the TB's fire on all cylinders they could definitely take care of Lithuania.
Lithuania will be a challenge, but the type of challenge that could be overcome. They're headed by Jonas Valanciuas of the Toronto Raptors and have dispatched of Mexico, Angola, South Korea and Slovenia but slipped up against the Aussies. There's hope.
A supreme effort and a few hot players could do the job, but it will probably take something more along the lines of a star performance from Penney or Corey Webster along with solid contributions from Vukona, Fotu and Rob Loe who will have to handle Valanciuas in the paint. We lost to this team in warm-ups, but we ran them close. And if we needed any extra inspiration, a win could see us play the Aussies in the quarters...