It is the early hours of the morning here in Turkey but the buzz is still strong following another great day for basketball downunder, and indeed the NBL, with Australia thrashing an in-form Angola and New Zealand stunning France.
I’ll cut to the chase, France needed to beat New Zealand to finish second in Group D, or lose by less than 12 to avoid 4th spot and the dreaded match-up with hosts Turkey, who are arguably the form team of the tournament.
Their fans are amazing. When it is announced at other venues that Turkey have won their match for the night the crowd erupts into a chant of Turkiye, Turkiye, Turkiye, that reverberates around the arena for minutes!
Back to the story. The French knew this game was huge and went straight at Tall Blacks stars Kirk Penney and Mika Vukona with NBAers Nicolas Batum and Boris Diaw from the first tip, adjusting their lineup to do so.
It was a great mark of respect for our NBLers, but what came next was amazing. New Zealand was on from the start, Penney splashing two triples off the bat to let Batum know he was in for a long night.
The Tall Blacks set up an eight point lead early, but France came back to lead at the quarter. Vukona and Casey Frank combined to make the margin double figures midway through the second term though.
Penney had missed a couple of easy ones and Batum, Pietrus and Gelabale were focusing heavily on him so he started to distribute. Frank, Lindsay Tait and Pero Cameron started to get open looks and were splashing them. If Phill Jones had his usual radar on it would have been a blowout.
I can tell you, like the Spanish when NZ kept making runs at them, the French were getting really peeved that they couldn’t stop these guys they’d never heard of!
Pero was superb. People say CJ Bruton is a great coach on the floor, I think Pero might even be better. His five points down the stretch to seal the win were magnificent, and he was there to receive the ball whenever the awesome French pressure defence was swarming, or direct the offence when it had lost its way.
Of course, after securing the win with less than a minute remaining the Tall Blacks turned their attention to the 12-point margin. With them up only five with 20 seconds remaining things didn’t look promising, but that was where the real fun started.
Penney nailed a three off the inbounds and drew a foul on Batum, nailing the free throw to make the margin within sight. A quick foul and two free throws to Yannick Bokolo meant it was nine points with 18 seconds to go.
New Zealand moved the ball superbly from the inbounds, and who else but Cameron found Tom Abercrombie open, who banked the three ‘Sapwell style’ (I know you meant it Rupert!) to finish the dream night off in style for the Kiwis.
While the official attendance says 3215, there were many more than that as most from the previous Lithuania v Lebanon game stayed on. Fair to say, apart from the 1000-odd French supporters in the building everyone was barracking for the Tall Blacks and the atmosphere was amazing.
The French were pretty cocky around here yesterday about Germany’s demise, so what goes around comes around I suppose.
As for our NBL v NBA match-ups, the stats don’t lie:
Penney 25 points on 40% shooting, 3 assists and 10 fouls drawn.
Batum 6 points at 25%, 5 rebounds and 3 assists
Vukona 15 points at 86%, 6 rebounds and 5 assists
Diaw 9 points at 27% and 6 rebounds
While this is international basketball and it is about the team game and not playing one-on-one – hence New Zealand’s win - these numbers could not go without a mention, because they reflect what happened on the court.
As for the Boomers, what a dominant win. Angola had beaten Germany in overtime, been within five points of Argentina at three quarter time, and beaten Jordan by 13 (more than Argentina and Australia combined!).
So to thrash them by 21, especially after such a slow start that caused Brett Brown to call his players rabbits in headlights, was a very good performance.
Gee Mark Worthington and David Barlow have come into their own as this tournament has worn on, they are the type of players supporters from other countries wish they could have. Tall, athletic, hard, smart and skilful. They were both great in today’s grind, and show the benefit of being ‘young veterans’ of international play.
Games on the last day of pool play are rarely pretty, and they don’t hand out medals for looks – this effort got the job done emphatically, allowed some key players to relax late in the game, and sets up a knockout battle with Slovenia.
While every top 16 team is very, very tough, I think they Boomers will be as comfortable as you can be with this match-up. They are a very tough team, but one that is also susceptible to pressure and not always at home in a fast game, which is what the Boomers will be trying to play.
I also hope Damian Martin gets a good run on the Slovenian guards if they start to cause trouble. I thought he could have been the guy for Teodosic against Serbia. But that is one for the bank in case we meet them again.
(On a side note, watching Vukona be such a big factor in this tournament has me believing more than ever that the Gold Coast’s Anthony Petrie can be a very good international player for the Boomers.)
For now the only game of this FIBA World Championship is against Slovenia. The game is at 1:00am Monday morning AEST so don’t miss it. A trip to the final eight would be a great achievement. New Zealand plays the following night against Russia – 4:00am Tuesday morning AEST or 6:00am in NZ.
With 21 players who have been on or are on NBL rosters, it is fair to say these two teams are doing us proud.
