Tall Blacks fall to Croatia in buzzer-beater

Corey Webster.

The Tall Blacks have come agonisingly close to beating Croatia this morning, with a buzzer-beating triple seeing them fall short, 70-68.

The Tall Blacks were down 65-59 with two minutes to play before a Corey Webster triple was added to by a Tom Abercrombie layup and a Mika Vukona steal.

Vukona's subsequent break-away layup put the Tall Blacks up one with less than a minute to play, until Croatia responded through Josip Sobin to re-gain the advantage.

With ten seconds left in the encounter, it looked like Vukona was set to be the hero, grabbing a missed trey from Webster and putting it back in to give the visitors a 68-67 lead with just ten seconds remaining.

However, Croatia point guard Rok Stipcevic buried a game-winning triple to see Croatia cling on to a win in which they had led throughout - by as many as 11.

Webster was again a classy standout for the Tall Blacks with a game-high 19 points, shooting 7/14 from the field and adding three rebounds and three assists.

Vukona also performed well with 10 points and nine rebounds, shooting 5/6 from the floor. Isaac Fotu added nine points while Rob Loe had nine points and four rebounds in just 10 minutes of court time.

Paul Henare once again got everyone game time, with Duane Bailey, Tai Wynyard and Shea Ili all getting at least seven minutes of court time.

In a slow-paced game, Henare's side shot 51% from the field and 39% from deep, but only got to the line six times - with drawing fouls something which could be concern in the series against Australia. They were also too careless in possession with 24 turnovers.

Croatia - who were missing NBA-calibre talents in Dario Saric, Mario Hejonza, Damjan Rudez and Bojan Bogdanovic - were led by Stipcevic who had 14 points, three rebounds and five assists.

The Tall Blacks now get on the bus to back up against Slovenia tomorrow morning.