{"id":16792,"date":"2026-02-27T07:37:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=16792"},"modified":"2026-02-27T07:37:46","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T18:37:46","slug":"tall-blacks-beat-philippines-in-key-world-cup-qualifier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=16792","title":{"rendered":"Tall Blacks beat Philippines in key World Cup qualifier"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tall Blacks are off the mark in their World Cup qualifying pool for next year’s basketball World Cup, overcoming the Philippines 69-66 in a tense affair in Manila.<\/p>\n

Sam Mennenga was influential under the basket as New Zealand staved off a charge from the home side and a raucous home crowd over the closing minutes.<\/p>\n

It follows twin losses for the 25th-ranked Tall Blacks in their two opening Asian qualifying group games against world No.6 Australia last last year which left them on the back foot in their four-team pool.<\/p>\n

The top three teams advance to the next window, with New Zealand favoured to finish ahead of 36th-ranked Philippines and 79th-ranked Guam.<\/p>\n

They are away to winless Guam in Mangilao on Sunday, although will field a weakened team, with some Tall Blacks players having committed to link up with their professional clubs immediately after the Philippines game.<\/p>\n

Forward Max Darling top scored for New Zealand with 11 points but Warriors centre Mennenga produced the best overall statistics, mixing 10 points with 14 rebounds – including five at the offensive end – four assists, one steal and one block.<\/p>\n

Adelaide 36ers guard Keanu Rasmussen was handed a late appearance on international debut.<\/p>\n

\"Judd<\/p>\n

Judd Flavell\u00a0<\/span>Photo:\u00a0Andrew Skinner\/www.photosport.nz<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Coach Judd Flavell was pleased his side emerged victorious in a defence-dominated affair.<\/p>\n

“We came here to get the win, and we got the job done,” Flavell said.<\/p>\n

“We knew it was gonna be a tough series against Australia in December. Both those games went down to the wire. We got beaten on a last-second bank shot three. There were plenty of positives, so the morale was very good.”<\/p>\n

“The group is very connected. We’re not a big country, but that makes us stronger. Because we’re a small country we need to be together and play a connected style of basketball. And that’s the same off the court.”<\/p>\n

Flavell said a key to victory was shutting down Philippines’ main scorer Justin Brownlee, who was held to just four points.<\/p>\n

“He’s given us the business before and in recent games, so he was a large focal point for us. I thought that went a long way for us defensively tonight.<\/p>\n

“It helps that we’ve played each other a lot and it obviously helps them with us too and our system. But we know he takes a lot of attention. He’s a true international scorer, so the intention was that we’ve just got to be within touching distance of him at all times.”<\/p>\n

rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tall Blacks are off the mark in their World Cup qualifying pool for next year’s basketball World Cup, overcoming the Philippines 69-66 in a tense affair in Manila. Sam Mennenga was influential under the basket as New Zealand staved off a charge from the home side and a raucous home crowd over the closing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16792"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16794,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16792\/revisions\/16794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}