The Tall Blacks Quietly Went And Got The Job Done vs China & South Korea, Sweet As
You ain’t gotta worry about the Tall Blacks at the moment. The memo should’ve gone out when they sent a second string team to the Asia Cup as their initial introduction to the new FIBA conference system (which effectively sees Oceania absorbed into Asia, at least in terms of games) and they still came back with fourth place medals. Granted losing to South Korea a couple times, including at home in WCQs, did raise an eyebrow or two.
The first round of FIBA’s World Cup qualifying is pretty much a formality but all results are carried through into the decisive second round. So when the kiwi side were toppled by South Korea back in November, it could’ve left them in a slightly harder position than they should’ve been in. No worries, this weekend they went to China and then they went to South Korea and they beat ‘em both with a couple damn fine games of basketball, particularly the South Korea game.
We’ll get to specifics in a second but what this all means is that the Tall Blacks take full control of their group. They’ve got two more games left, both at home in June/July, one against Hong Kong and the other against China. They’ve already qualified for the next round and should go through top if they can consolidate things with a win over China to get the head to head split. In fact if they win that game it doesn’t even matter what happens against Hong Kong (although they beat them by 59 points last time so… yeah, seems like a simple prospect).
And the Tall Blacks had arguably the toughest group as well. Three teams go through from each of the four groups but those carry-over points matter heaps. These are effectively second round wins, these last two. In September, November and February the Tall Blacks (as well as China and probably South Korea) will face Jordan, Lebanon and either Syria or India home and away with the top three teams going through to the World Cup (top four if China, as hosts, are in the top four – which they probably will be). Jordan and Lebanon will be the most difficult tasks but it’s hard to imagine the Tall Blacks bottling it from here. They’ve already proved they belong amongst the best in Asia.
To be fair, this is way more work than it took to qualify out of Oceania – where all they needed to do was lose to Australia – but this way it comes with a volume of competitive games and Olympic qualifying will benefit as well, just a little.
That’s because instead of having to beat Australia head to head, the Tall Blacks can sneak in ahead of them by finishing better than them at the World Cup. No easy task but you never know, they might trip up in the early rounds or something and draw USA in the knockouts. Easier than giving Ben Simmons, Joe Ingles and Patty Mills (worst case scenario) the go around across 80 minutes, that’s for sure. Otherwise if they miss out that way, they can sneak in via the backdoor with the same last-gasp qualifying tourneys that they failed to progress out of last time.
Rightio then, what did we see in China and South Korea?
The game against China was far from the complete 40 minute performance. The starting five of Webster x2, Te Rangi, Loe and Fotu set a decent defensive platform, keeping China without a field goal for the first three minutes, but then points were hard to come by for both teams in a 14-all opening quarter. Chinese legend Yi Jianlian started popping off in the third, getting China up as many as eight. The home side lead most of the way through that 2Q.
Thing is, Yi’s range of shooting and the general quality that emanates from a dude who’s played 272 games in the NBA may have been an issue – and it certainly was, he shot 13 of 24 from the field with three triples for a game-high 37 points – but that was about it for China. Zhou Peng also scored 17 points, shooting at 70%, but literally nobody else in that team scored more than 6 points. The Tall Blacks on the other hand had options. They had multiple dudes who could score and they could do it in multiple ways.
Shea Ili did some nice things on the way to 10 points off the bench. He avoided the deep ball, often a weakness of his, but picked his moments well to attack the rim, always a strength. Bunch of steals at the end there too. A few days later he’d be crowned the NBL’s Most Improved Player. And Alex Pledger’s size inside was an asset as well, he got to the line for eight free throws (making five) on the way to 11 points and 6 rebounds.
But of course there are two blokes who stand out in this crowd and they’re both named Webster. Each of them scored 18 points with 5 assists, Tai hitting four triples while Corey was a little less accurate but still effective when it mattered most. Which is how the Tall Blacks were able to take this thing from a 65-64 deficit with 6:22 remaining to a 75-65 lead with 3:09 remaining. That definitive 11-0 run, featuring a fair bit of Alex Pledger (6 of his 11 points came in the fourth), did the business. Corey Webster scored 16 points in the first half to keep Aotearoa in it and then Tai Webster dropped 13 of his in the fourth to close it out. Teamwork, baby. 82-73 the final score.
That’s a quality win. A really solid defensive performance outside of the best player in the game, Yi Jianlian, against a more than decent opponent and away from home to boot. Then the win over South Korea was even better.
When South Korea won in Wellington a few months ago they shot an insane 48% from deep. Jeon Jun-beom was a sizzling 6 of 8 from range. The Tall Blacks still had opportunities to win that thing but they couldn’t quite stop the Koreans from scoring, some tired defence after limited preparations really killing them. This time they were ready. This time it was the Breakers draining them from deep and going bang.
Corey Webster, mate. We know he can run hot and cold sometimes, at least by his high standards, and this was red hot. He scored 30 points on a mere 18 shots. He was 6/9 from 3pt in playing almost 31 minutes, the legend. The Tall Blacks moved the ball around for 26 assists and they rebounded fantastically. Way too much size between Pledger and Fotu, each of whom had double-double. Alex Pledger ended with 12p & 10r while Isaac Fotu had 18p & 11r. Fotu did a lot of his damage at the free throw line as well, which isanother sign of a dominant physical big man, plus he had 4 assists because the lad’s got skills.
Rob Loe did some stuff too (11p/4r/2a), allowed to play with a bit more freedom than we often see at the Breakers given the team’s size advantage and when he’s making triples then he’s always gonna have an impact. That’s the barometer for Loe.
Jeon still bagged 4/5 three-pointers but the rest of the team was 3/13 between them all. Korea’s basically gotta be hitting those jumpers to compete with New Zealand and here they weren’t. Plan B was to keep feeding domesticized big lad Ricardo Ratliffe. That bloke scored 29 points with 11 rebounds, but the Tall Blacks were able to win despite a dominant big effort last time and so it was again here. The damage was done in the third quarter. Outscoring the home side by ten points in the frame, there she goes. The closest SK got again was seven points.
And let it be said that this was a Tall Blacks team without Mika Vukona, Tom Abercrombie or any of the USA college guys. There’s something going on here.
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