PASAY CITY (Philippines) - New Zealand needed luck to pull off a 69-66 escape act versus the Philippines to break through in the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2027 Asian Qualifiers, Thursday night at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The Tall Blacks almost squandered an 11-point lead when Gilas rallied back and knocked within just two twice inside the final 45.2 seconds behind Dwight Ramos, but did well enough to keep the home team at bay.
Yanni Wetzell came through with a tough cleanup undeeneath to push their lead to 68-64, before Reuben Te Rangi split his foul shots to widen the gap to three shortly after Ramos' putback in the possession prior.
The Filipino dribblers had the chance to tie the game but Ramos' heave from way beyond the three-point line missed, and the visitors could only breathe a huge sigh of relief after successfully averting disaster.
Key players
Max Darling top-scored for New Zealand with 11 points, with Sam Mennenga delivering a double-double of 10 points and 14 rebounds. Alex McNaught provided the surprise spark with 10 points behind three triples.
Tyrell Harrison contributed 9 points and 7 rebounds, including this jam:
Carrying the fight for the opposing team, meanwhile, was Ramos with 16 points. He was backed up by CJ Perez with 15 points and the comebacking Juan Gomez de Liano, who tallied 10 points off the bench.
Turning point
Mennenga was responsible in pushing their lead to a decade's worth at 63-53 early in the final period, but no breakaway whatsoever happened as Ramos triggered a scoring spree that put Gilas back in the game
With CJ Perez and the new towering tandem of Quentin Millora-Brown and AJ Edu helping him out, the Philippines put together an 11-3 rally to come within just a field goal, 66-64, thus setting up the thrilling finish.
Bottom line
Eventually, New Zealand would barge into the Group A win column, in the process dealing the Philippines their first defeat after a 2-0 start - and denying them as well from booking an early trip to the Second Round.
Stats don't lie
It was a tough shooting night from the field for both teams actually, but the Tall Blacks shot slightly better with a 38-percent clip on their way to beating Gilas for the third successive time, and seventh overall.
New Zealand's defense, furthermore, worked well, as they managed to limit a potent scorer in Justin Brownlee to a measly 4 points on 10 attempts, which could be his lowest scoring output in a FIBA competition.
They said
"We knew this was gonna be a tough game, we knew that this was gonna be a physical game, that it was gonna be a war between two teams that are very familiar with each other. We've played each other now for I think four times over the last [15] months. There's not too many secrets out there. We came here to get the win. And we got the job done. It wasn't pretty, it was not a beautiful game of basketball to watch. And certainly, I thought, there were areas we could've tidied up ... but at the end of the day, I thought we really stood up well defensively." - Judd Flavell, Head Coach, New Zealand
"Like Coach said, we came in here to get the job done and that's what we did. There are some areas we need to clean up. They had offensive boards early on, and looking after the ball a bit better are some of the areas to improve. But we came in and got the win, I guess that's all that matters." - Keanu Rasmussen, New Zealand
"I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like I'm happy about our performance. We're not gonna feel good or take pride in the fact that we got close or we almost won or whatever. Bottomline is we're here to win, and we didn't do that. There were certain parts of the game that I thought we did well; we defended well, we competed on the boards. I thought our big guys, Q and AJ, played really well. I hate saying that, well, we didn't make shots 'cause there's more to the game than making shots, and that's an easy explanation. But if you're saying that, it's because you're not getting good shots, and we didn't get the shots that we wanted. We didn't get the flow we wanted. Credit goes to them because they defended well as well. But the bottomline is, we're not gonna take any pride in almost winning or making the game close or whatever. We showed up to win. And we didn't do that tonight." - Tim Cone, Head Coach, Philippines
"There's nothing to feel good about with an almost. Now, we have to move on for our next game, we need to focus, we need to move forward for the game against Australia. It's tough that we didn't win but we still have a chance to bounce back." - CJ Perez, Australia
FIBA