A "thoroughly disorganised" Australian Boomers team suffered its biggest ever loss to New Zealand in a men's basketball test, crashing 72-53 to the Tall Blacks in Napier.

It was only New Zealand's fifth victory in 52 games against the Boomers and its first in their last eight encounters.

The Tall Blacks led at every change, 16-14, 37-28 and 55-44 at the last break.

Australian coach Brian Goorjian gave all 12 of his players a run, including previously uncapped centre Alex Maric, but his willingness to give the younger squad members a go adversely affected the visitors' structure.

The misfiring Boomers, who shot just 32 per cent from the field, managed just nine points in the final term.

Italy-based Phill (Phill) Jones sparked the Tall Blacks with a match high 28-point haul, which included eight three-pointers.

NBA-experienced centres Andrew Bogut and Chris Anstey, who were Australia's major scorers in their 81-79 overtime win in the series opener at the same venue last Wednesday, both had far less court time.

Australia's only double digit scorers were forward Sam MacKinnon with 13 and Brad Newley (11).

Bogut finished with nine points on three of nine field goal shooting in 18 minutes, while Anstey tallied four points from two out of five field goal efforts in 25 minutes.

"I went after the win in game one and I played four guys in an overtime game close to 40 minutes and I made a concerted effort tonight to have a look at the young guys on the bench," Goorjian said.

"I played all 12 and we were thoroughly disorganised, we were all over the place and couldn't execute a thing.

"They executed very well. Last time they didn't hit their shots, tonight they hit their shots."

Goorjian said Australia was really struggling in the point guard position where he gave three players, Aaron Bruce, Luke Kendall and Steve Markovic a run tonight.

"You go through the list of Australian point guards and it's barren as far as international experience goes and I'm trying to find one out of this group that can run this team and that was a real issue tonight."

Jones was the only New Zealander to hit a double figure score.

"For some reason they left me open," Jones said.

"If I get a good chance to shoot I'm usually not too shy to throw it up and they were going in."

While New Zealand shot far better tonight than on Wednesday, Tall Blacks coach Tab Baldwin said his team's defence tonight was outstanding.

"A lot more intelligent than Wednesday night with the same level of effort and I thought offensively we had better flow and consequently we shot the ball better."

The series now shifts to Australia with matches in Hobart on Monday and Melbourne on Wednesday.

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