It has certainly been a good couple of days for Oceania basketball in Turkey, with Australia nearly doubling Germany’s score – the best defensive effort in the tournament to date – and New Zealand smashing Lebanon, 108-76, the second highest score so far.
The tournament continues to be on a knife edge. Five of the six games today where in doubt deep into the last quarter. It’s hard not to get caught up in the crowds and the great buzz
Tom Abercrombie has also got tongues wagging over here, racking up 19 points and 9 rebounds against Spain – that’s right, Spain!
He more than held his own in his head-to-heads with Rudy Fernandez too, and then backed it up by scoring 10 points in the first four minutes against Lebanon to set up the go to woe thrashing – finishing with 23 points and 7 rebounds.
He also threw down the dunk of the tournament so far, an amazing one handed alley-oop where he jumps over the top of, and posterised Elie Stephan who was playing just his second minute of world championship basketball!
Do yourself a favour and have a look at it here:
http://www.fibatv.com/page/Video/0,,12805~1643858,00.html?tabb=&pnumber=1
Tom is currently equal thirteenth in scoring at just over 16ppg and ninth in rebounding at 8rpg – just ahead of Mika Vukona in fifteenth, who is also sixth in steals and 22nd in assists, ahead of Derrick Rose.
Keep in mind that Abercrombie averaged 9ppg and 4rpg last season in the NBL, and Vukona 7ppg and 6rpg! Amazing. Get to see the Breakers this year when they come to your town, you’ll regret it if you don’t.
I won’t talk too much about the Australia v Germany game because the Boomers spoke loudly enough on court. While this is a German team that finished 11th at last year’s Eurobasket, they had showed the previous nights how good they could be if things went their way.
The Boomers hit them so hard and fast that they couldn’t climb out of their hole for the entire four quarters.
I could be wrong, but I am sure I noticed a few subtle Breaker sets in what they were running, which got a bit more player and ball movement than in previous games and certainly took the Germans out of help position at times.
Guards all around the NBL will take solace from the defensive dominance of Damian Martin and Adam Gibson in that game, particularly guarding the pick and roll, while Dave Barlow was Mr Everywhere filling holes in the D whenever they appeared.
What I want to talk about is ‘choking’. After the Argentina game that word was mentioned a bit about the Boomers performance because they had been 10 up at one point.
Well, let me tell you about the game I covered tonight. Spain dominated Lithuania from about five minutes in. They harassed them defensively, picked holes in their transition defence, Marc Gasol was having his way inside, and Navarro and Garbajosa were on fire when he kicked it out.
The Spaniards led by 15 in the second quarter and led 61-43 with four minutes left in the third.
Then it all changed. Lithuania started pushing the ball and Spain committed a few of those annoying Euro fouls to slow the break. Problem was after a couple it put the Baltics to the line and they hit five free throws and a buzzer beater to be within 11 at the last break.
They picked up the pace in the last and once their thousands of drum beating fans got going they were unstoppable. Spain kept walking the ball up the court and trying to run sets but the momentum had gone faster than John Rillie from a defence party.
The Lithuanians finally hit the lead thanks to a drive by Linas Kleiza with a minute to go and got home by three. My point is that in international basketball this can, and does, happen to everyone. Spain only scored nine points in the last quarter. So did the USA the night before.
Sometimes in the intensity and physicality of FIBA basketball it is just impossible to get good shots. Interestingly Kirk Penney made the point that he has played in the NBL, ACB, Euroleague and NBA, but the level of international basketball is well above any domestic league.
It’s tough out there. Every win is a good win, even by a point against Jordan!
A couple of big games tomorrow for the Aussies and Kiwis. The Boomers face Serbia in a game that could lock up second place in the pool. The Serbs get Krstic back but as Greece showed tonight – when they got their suspended players back but fell to Turkey by 11 – sometimes that can be a distraction.
The match-up between Maric and Krstic will be most interesting. As I mentioned earlier Martin and Gibson have been world class defensively, but they face their biggest test yet tomorrow with Milos Teodosic, the best user of the on-ball screen in Europe.
If they can prevent him from getting and creating shots at will they will give the Boomers a massive shot at winning, and dispel the rumour once and for all that the NBL doesn’t have world class defensive talent. It will be a learning experience for both the guys.
The Tall Blacks face Canada – a team who speak glowingly of Dave Thomas and clearly remember his tales of championships with the Tigers!
And while, barring major upsets, NZ are most likely through to the second round to face Turkey, a win over a genuinely competitive opponent like Canada - who have lost to Lithuania by two and France by five after leading for most of both games – would give the Tall Blacks real legitimacy.
Finally, today’s New Zealand-Lebanon game was a great story, with best mates Tab Baldwin and Nenad Vucinic taking each other on for the first time in international basketball. For those who don’t know, Vucinic was Baldwin’s long time assistant when he coached New Zealand – including the famous 2002 FIBA World Championship.
They embraced before and after the game, but Nenad was a bit of a wreck afterwards, pointing out that when they used to coach against each other in the NZNBL in the 90s he had never won a game!
We caught up with both of them beforehand in what was an interesting interview. You can watch it here:
http://www.fibatv.com/page/Video/0,,12805~1643137,00.html?tabb=&pnumber=1
That’s it for tonight – the Boomers have an early one tomorrow – 11:30pm AEST so find somewhere with Fox and support the guys. And remember, if things aren’t working out perfectly for them, it’s tough out there!
Paulo Kennedy
