The New Zealand women’s 3x3 basketball team suffered a body blow when they went down to Canada 16-11 in their semi-final.
The result was stunning for the New Zealand players - Tiarna Clarke, Kalani Purcell, Jillian Harmon and Ella Fotu – because they’d beaten Canada relatively comfortably in a preliminary round.
This time the Canadians seems to be able to spirit through the New Zealand defence and they then fired one-pointers with alacrity.
New Zealand tried to win the game with two-pointers – they had 12 shots but managed to sink only two of them.
In an earlier game, the New Zealand men’s team lost a close quarter-final to Canada 21-18.
The New Zealand team - Richard Rodger, Tai Wynyard, Dominique Kelman-Poto and Jayden Bezzant – fought hard and certainly had their chances, but Canada were allowed too many chances to penetrate.
For New Zealand, Bezzant had a good game as a points scorer – he made all eight one-point shots from the field and three of the five two-pointers he attempted for a personal tally of 14 points.
Afterwards he was struggling to see the bright side. “I don’t really care much about the individual athletes – it’s the team that matters. I’m just disappointed we lost.
“We let them get some easy layups. Canada are a great side and player as a unit, but it’s disappointing for us.”