Basketball: Walk tall, think tall ... and win

By PETER JESSUP

It's all in the mind ... and that is the Tall Blacks' main problem as they count down for next week's world championships.

They need a winning swagger, a self-confidence that tells them they will win games rather than just believing they can win some.

That is the analysis of coach Tab Baldwin after an arduous build-up tour across Europe and Canada.

The trek produced only two wins from seven games, but one of these was the Tall Blacks' first victory over defending world champions Yugoslavia.

"We have to feel reasonably good about it because we've learned an awful lot," Baldwin said.

"There's so much that's new and different, and you can't help but absorb it all."

Two tests against France, a three-game tournament in Germany and two matches with Canada had shown the squad it could compete on the world stage.

The job now was to take the "compete" mentality to another level.

"I see teams like France and Yugoslavia walk on the court with a swagger, an attitude that says they know they're going to win. We fully realise we're not out of our depth now, but we have to go out with an attitude that the opposition has to get over us, that they have to react to us, they have to fear us.

"When we win, we have to go off the court thinking we deserved it, not that 'maybe it was a fluke' or 'we got past that one'."

That confident feeling was an intangible and he didn't think a time frame could be put on its development.

Against Yugoslavia, a rocket from Baldwin in a time-out he called two minutes from the end of play turned things around.

"When will close enough no longer be good enough?" he asked his team when they were three points down.

They won by three - with a late shot from outside the paint by captain Pero Cameron.

Cameron's calf injury is fully healed and Baldwin says the skipper is the fittest he has seen him, and truly world class.

The only other Kiwi player in that category, Miami Heat's New Zealand forward, Sean Marks, sat out the second test against Canada with a hamstring tear. The hope is it will ease within the next week and he will be fit for the world championships.

Forward Damon Rampton has long had a back vertebrae problem, which kept him out of the second Canada test.

The injury required rest and management, and Baldwin was confident Rampton would play his part in Indianapolis.

His older brother Tony is out, making a slow recovery from surgery to remove bone spurs on his ankle.

Which leaves the Tall Blacks decidedly short when they go up against the biggest in world basketball in a week.

Baldwin believes the run of injuries has had an effect on team confidence.

"How do we look at ourselves when Sean is out injured?" - implying the confidence level drops when the stars drop out.

The loss of Tony Rampton was "not as big a blow physically as it was psychologically." That mental problem again.

The team are playing better than they did in the home series win over Hungary, and Baldwin still has some aces up his sleeve.

"It's been a balancing act and I hate to think I'm putting us in a position where we're not at our best through every game," the coach said of the tinkering he's done with the line-up and the game-plan.

"But we have to remember that this [the build-up tour] is not the big show."

The team now go into camp in Toronto for what Baldwin said will be intensive sessions of hard work.

They go to Indianapolis on Tuesday and play Algeria that night in a final warm-up game.

Two days of tapering off follow, including time spent watching a video of the Russian team they will face in game one.

"I had some concerns we weren't up to this level," Baldwin said. "I had concerns about jumping in at the deep end on this tour.

"But now we know we're good enough. Now it's about being more than competitive."