Either the New Zealand shooting guard starts to bury his three-pointers or his international career ends in disappointment in Saitama where New Zealand are playing Argentina in the FIBA World Championship.

Jones has been one of the Tall Blacks leading players in recent years and helped them reach the semi-finals in 2002.

The lefty, 32, must hit the target against the Olympic champions or New Zealand will bow out of the tournament.

Jones has made just six of 36 (17%) shots from three-point range in five games so far in Japan and averaged just over five points per game.

His coach, Tab Baldwin, is desperate for his veteran to regain his touch.

"Phil's been in a slump before," said Baldwin.

"We're not talking about a kid. We're talking about a veteran. I tell him just shoot your way out of it. We want him to keep shooting until they start dropping. It's in his hands.

It is an issue for the team to have our shooters shooting well, but there's not a lot we can do about it."

Jones spoke to PA Sport's Cindy Garcia-Bennett on behalf of FIBA prior to the big showdown against Argentina.

FIBA: Jones, New Zealand entered the tournament with high expectations but barely made it to the knockout round. What happened?

Jones: "It has been a pretty tough tournament for us so far. The first three games against Spain, Germany and Angola were pretty tough. Angola was a lot better than we expected and they really gave us a tough game. We didn't play so well against Japan luckily we won and we beat Panama who was maybe thinking about going home before the game. In some ways it was good for us because it wasn't such a hard game."

FIBA: It seemed that in your preparations things were falling into place.

Jones: "We were playing good before we came here and I really don't know why we just don't have the chemistry that we had in the past. Hopefully we can get that back overnight and we can win. Personally, I've had a terrible tournament shooting but shooters go through that and we have to try and pick ourselves up. I have another chance tomorrow. I'm sure Argentina will be concentrating on me and shooting from the perimeter will not be easy. I will have to take my chances and make my shots."

FIBA: You played Argentina very tough in the preliminary round at the Olympics in Athens. Does that give you additional confidence going into Saturday's game against them?

Jones: "We have played Argentina quite a few times before, we know their players quite well. We need to try to defend certain players that they have Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola, if we can do that we can give ourselves a chance to win. Really, we have to concentrate on ourselves because we haven't been playing as well as we can."

FIBA: How is this year's team compared to that of the 2004 Olympics in Athens?

Jones: "We are an older team, we have a lot of experience. When things really matter we tend to buckle down and play hard and tomorrow we have to do that because for sure Argentina is going to come us against us strong and they are a very good offensive team and we are going to have to play on defense to stop them and hopefully we are going to do that."

FIBA: How significant is this game against Argentina for New Zealand basketball?

Jones: "It will be a huge thing for us, Argentina are the Olympic champions and also it's a team that we have come so close to beat them and we haven't quite done it. It would be nice to get another nodge on the belt so to speak, they are a world class team and continue onto the top eight."