The Tall Blacks' winning run in China ended last night with a 77-64 loss to Cameroon at Zhongshan.
After winning their previous tournament at Shenzhen three days ago, the young Kiwi team are fronting up to the same opposition at a new venue and found the Africans intent of avenging their one-point loss earlier in the week.
"They certainly came out very, very physical and fired up," said Tall Blacks coach Nenad Vucinic. "They wanted to prove they are better than our young team and they were better tonight.
"We lost the rebounding battle for the first time this tour. We probably expected to drop tonight - we have played consistently for five games, but gave them too much confidence in the first half."
New Zealand trailed by 11 points at halftime and, in the absence of Tom Abercrombie who was sidelined with an ankle injury, struggled to contain NBA performer Luc Richard Mbah a Moute.
"He certainly showed why he earns 10 times more than our whole team put together," said Vucinic. "Without Tom, we really only had Reuben Te Rangi as a small forward, and had to play Everard Bartlett and Jordan Ngatai out of position against him."
While the Tall Blacks cut the deficit back to seven points during the second half, they could not sustain their offence to put pressure on their opponents down the stretch.
In addition to Abercrombie's injury, captain Mika Vukona was also not 100 per cent after sustaining a rib injury in the final moments of their last outing against Chinese club side Liaoning.
"Although he battled hard, you could see he was a step back from where he was," said Vucinic.
The Tall Blacks don't have much time to regroup - they're due to face Mississauga Power today at 6.30pm (NZT).
