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New Zealand hammered Lebanon by 32 points at the basketball world championships in Turkey this morning, a result that Nenad Vucinic described at the finest in his lengthy coaching career.
Vucinic's men smashed a Lebanon side coached by former Tall Blacks mentor Tab Baldwin 108-76 to lodge their first win at the tournament following solid losses to Lithuania and Spain.
Victory over winless Canada in their penultimate pool match tomorrow morning should be enough for New Zealand to qualify for the quarterfinals.
Vucinic could barely contain his emotions after toppling Baldwin, the man who he was Tall Blacks assistant coach to for several years before succeeding him in 2006.
"For me as a coach, that was honestly the biggest win in my coaching career. I had coached against Tab in the 90s for many years in the New Zealand league and never won a game, because Tab is one of the best coaches in the world," Vucinic said.
"Congratulations to my team. They really played with their hearts, and with their heads, most of the time."
Key shooter Kirk Penney top-scored for the third straight game with 26 points, including six-from-10 from outside the three-point arc.
However, momentum for the win was set up by a blistering first quarter sparked by forwards Mika Vukona and Thomas Abercrombie, who pushed New Zealand 32-16 clear. Abercrombie had 10 points in the first four minutes, while Vukona had seven points, five rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal for the quarter.
"Thomas Abercrombie and Mika Vukona helped us with a lot of offensive rebounds, and that gave us confidence really to shoot the ball better," Vucinic said.
"That was the key to the game, and also our turnover count was low."
Baldwin said his side were effectively shut out of the game and paid credit to the Tall Blacks players, many of whom he has shared long coach-player relationship with.
"We were severely outplayed, and as Nenad said, we got dominated in those possession statistics like offensive rebounds and turnovers," he said.
"It was almost impossible to win. And the fact that New Zealand did such a great job in those categories at the beginning of the game, they created that mood, that atmosphere in the game and they never let that momentum go."
Abercrombie, who also shone against defending champions Spain, finished with 23 points while veteran guard Phill Jones tallied 13. Vukona and Craig Bradshaw pulled down 13 rebounds between them.
For Lebanon, Fadi El Khatib top-scored with 18 and he picked up seven rebounds but his side paid dearly for 21 turnovers.
New Zealand guard Lindsay Tait led the way as New Zealand snapped up 11 steals, a sign of the intensity they brought to their defence.
It was a rare century for the New Zealanders, whose scoring output came mainly in the first and third quarters.
Penney, who averages a tournament-high 28 points per game through three rounds, came alive after halftime, pouring in 14 of their 30 points in the third stanza.
New Zealand 108 (Kirk Penney 26, Thomas Abercrombie 23, Phill Jones 13) Lebanon 76 (Fadi El Khatib 18). Halftime: 51-32.