The Tall Blacks crumbled under the Lithuanian pressure, 92-79 in game one at the Basketball World Champs in Turkey on Sunday (NZT).
The 24-25 scoreline at the end of the first quarter in favour of Lithuania was only made possible through the heroics of 'King' Kirk Penny, as he added his name to the score board against nearly half of the Kiwis first quarter points.
The Tall Blacks only real scoring opportunities came from outside the arc as Lithuania continued to mount a mass of pressure, rattling the Kiwis and causing them to struggle to penetrate the Lithuanian defence.
The second quarter started in much the same vein as the first, with the Lithuanians capitalising on the kiwis missed opportunities to race out to a 15-point lead just before the halfway mark of the quarter.
With almost as many fouls as points in the quarter it seemed that the Kiwis' standard physical style was going to have consequences. With shooting guard Tom Abercrombie finding himself spending more time on the bench than the court after picking up three personal fouls before the halftime break.
With a further two fouls later in the game Abercrombie's luck finally ran out when he was forced to sit out the final few minutes of the match. When Abercrombie was joined on the bench by Craig Bradshaw, who also managed to accumulate five fouls, things were looking even worse for the Kiwis.
Finally to round out the first half, and with just a second left on the clock, Lithuania's Linas Keleiza drilled a three-point buzzer beater to see the halftime score blow out to 50 points to 34.
The second half began with what looked to be a much more focused Tall Blacks side; a team with urgency and a willingness to try something different. Throwing caution to the wind they shrugged off the second quarter blues, quickly reducing the massive half time deficit to eight and looked as though they might just make a game of it.
Forward Mika Vukona contributed with a solid 19 points and three assists as he lead a charge of full court pressure which saw a handful of turnovers go the Kiwis' way. But it was a case of a poor defensive effort during the second quarter that proved a hill too high to climb for the Tall Blacks, and they succumbed to the stranglehold the Lithuanians had applied from the get go.
When summing up the game Mika Vukona said: "We showed we can score goals, the loss was more to do with being stunned by our opposition in the second quarter."
He added: "We know we are better than the performance we showed out there tonight, our defence was sloppy and uncharacteristic."
Tall Blacks Coach Nenad Vucinic thought they were 'beaten in defence by ourselves and gave away far too many silly fouls that were unnecessary and costly'.
New Zealand will need to rebound from their first-up loss in a hurry as they take on tournament favourites Spain on Monday (NZT). A team Vucinic talks up as 'one of the fastest teams around, but a team we can beat all the same'.