VIDEO: USA Basketball Watches Ritual Dance Before Game With New Zealand's National Team

Before USA Basketball beat New Zealand 98-71 in the FIBA World Cup on Thursday, the latter performed a ritual Haka dance to the NBA-star laden team during warmups.

Known as a type of ancient Maori war dance historically used on the battlefield to show a tribe’s pride and strength, New Zealand unleashed its version before tip-off and appeared to leave many of the USA’s players looking confused.

In the video below, New Zealand emerges from their pre-game huddle and spreads out in two rows on their side of the court. They then chanted and wildly gesticulated their arms and stomped their feet, with USA guards James Harden, Derrick Rose, and forward Kenneth Faried caught starting during the minute-long ritual.

The dance, however, didn’t faze the USA has Anthony Davis scored a game-high 21 points and Faried ripped down 11 rebounds, and as a team they shot 50.7 percent from the field and forced 21 New Zealand turnovers.

The U.S. faces the Dominican Republic on Thursday.