Hoops

Boomers v Spain Friday Morning

I think the Boomers need a very good SG for the future; For their sake, heres hoping the likes of Igor Hadziomerovic or Anthony Drmic can develop into a very good international SG.

Because as of now, they have Ingles, Barlow and Newley who are very similar:

-Inconsistent/Streaky shooters
-Same size hence same position (3)
-Lack the lateral foot speed to defend SG's.

I see the shooting guard as a real problematic position for the Boomers, both defensively and offensively.
The 3 names mentioned above (Ingles, Barlow and Newley are too slow) are all incapable of been effective at this position.
Crawford is hardly international standard (Ive been trying to figure out what he actually does well, He is a streaky as hell shooter, ok defender and doesn't attack the rim well).
So the coaching staff have been trying to fulfill the 2 spot with these guys that aren't SG's, and shouldn't be shooting guards at any level : Martin, Gibson, Mills. (Delly I can see as a legit 2 man more than the others because of his size and he is a very good shooter very consistent)

I think I understand what you are on about with Ingles, Adam and I think it applies to the current generation of Boomers in general.

The way I see it, this current generation is far more athletic across the board than any of the Boomers teams I have seen come before them. In the past, when we played the top teams, we were so clearly physically overmatched. Now the difference is not so great.

Look at last night - we were able to guard every player on Spain at least reasonably effectively. The Gasol brothers eventually did get it going offensively, but mostly it was superior skill, rather than physical dominance, that got them their baskets.

Despite this, the Boomers have not looked close to getting back to being a top four team as the Gaze era Boomers were for awhile.

This is where the frustration stems from for me. I think there are a couple of reasons for it though.

1) Obviously the standard of intl competition has improved immeasurably since the 90s. Now there are a lot of nations with strong basketball programs.

2) We have a lot of players who show flashes of their ability, but none has yet taken that step into the elite of international basketball. In basketball, one player can have a much bigger impact than most other team sports, so you really need to have that star everyone else works off.

In the past, that was Gaze. We knew what he could do and everyone else was then fit in around him. Bradtke, Vlahov, Heal, they were all limited players, but they were very good at one or two things.

In this era, that alpha dog should be Bogut, but because of his importance to the Bucks and the injuries he's had, he hasn't really been able to play with the Boomers that often for several years.

Without him, we haven't really developed a clear identity with rock solid roles for most of the players. Now of course, I can't be sure, but I think this kind of uncertainty can mess with players heads. Ie, instead of focussing on just making shots, players may be second guessing themselves about whether they should be shooting it or passing off. Hence you get Ingles 'trying to take over a game' one minute, but then receding into the background if he blows a couple of shots.

If you want to be a good shooter, you have to believe in yourself. Ray Allen and Reggie Miller are known for their mental strength. They don't care how many times they miss, because they *know* the next one is going in.

To that extent, I like Mills attitude - the kid believes in himself and has a crack. Just like Heal, he is going to have shocking shooting nights. But Heal also won us games with his shooting.

I think Ingles and Newley need to have that attitude as well. If we are going to beat the better teams, those are the two guys (in the absence of Bogut) who are going to do it for us.

So every time I watch the Boomers, the thing I'm most hoping for (other than Bogut and Irving playing!) is to see Ingles and/or Newley take that next step and become dominant international players.

I think you're being a little harsh on Mills, Adam, but I generally agree with what you are saying. I have always seen him ideally as a sparkplug off the bench to turn a game, rather than as a starter. When his shooting is on, he really can fill it up, but because of his lack of size and hops, he struggles to score at the basket against good opposition.

If Irving decides to play for us then the problem will be solved, but in the meantime, I believe he is our best option to start at PG in most games because of his speed. In this morning's game, for example, he was the only guy who could consistently stay in front of both Calderon and Rubio defensively. As a result, their guards generally had a minimal impact on the game, with most of their scoring coming from fast breaks generated by Ibaka's shot blocking or from good mid-range shooting by the Gasol brothers. Very little was created from dribble penetration.

Hopefully Newley plays in the next game and he and Ingles can force their D to collapse a little more to get Patty some easy looks beyond the arc. He won't shoot that badly again for awhile!

According to the google translated article above, Spain was missing several players including former Memphis Grizzlie Juan Carlos Navarro, but still much closer to a full strength side than the Boomers.

Haven't seen a boxscore yet, but its safe to say Mills had a shocker shooting-wise. My guess is 2/15 or so! Think his turnovers were probably down though, which is a good thing.

Spain are a big ask for any team and great prep for the Boomers going into the NZ Vs Aus series. Pretty woeful shooting from outside stopped any chance of keeping up on the scoreboard it would seem.

Anonymous, I agree that you need both offence and defence to win games, but you obviously didn't watch the game this morning if you think our low score was due to a lack of offensive sets from Brown. We actually moved the ball very well for large parts of the game. Our problem was simply missing open shot after open shot! We shot 1/20 from beyond the arc! Unfknblvbl even for this Boomers team!

AB4EVA, hopefully you are right and he is just resting players. It is annoying though, because we could have really used Newley last night. He would have scored many of those open court layups where Mills got chewed up and spat out! He has also been making threes, which none of our other guys could do last night.

Likewise, although it will be good to see if Maric can score on their big guys, its not going to mean much if Nielsen doesn't play, because then we'll suffer on the defensive end without his mobility and leadership.

Final score was in fact 68-51.

ACB: Australia vs Spain Recap (Google Translated)

Mills, Ingles, Barlow, Nielsen and Ogilvy started.

Ingles & Nielsen scored 11, Baynes 8, Dellavedova 6, Mills 5 and Barlow had 4 points in the loss. Delly fouled out.

Didn't manage to catch the game as I had to get up and get to work - but that link I last posted will also be showing the 2nd game too. It is a pretty good feed.

Could Newley and Maric's limited minutes be a case of Brown rotating/resting players like he did in the tourney in the UK? Maybe we could see them involved in game 2?

By far our biggest weakness for some time now has been shooting. Newley being out tonight really hurt, but we have to find another guy who can really score the basketball from long range. He's not ready yet defensively, but hopefully Bose can have a big rookie season for Sydney, because he does have a nice looking shot and I think he could be one solution in the next couple of years.

Would love to know what is wrong with Newley and Maric. Anyone know? Hopefully they play the next game tomorrow morning.

My last comment: anyone else think Fernandez and Calderon are over-rated?

If we just had ONE guy who could shoot like Gaze...

Ouch, the Gasol brothers really found their shooting touch in the 3rd. Nothing we can really do about it either, as we just don't have enough size to really pressure their shots.

An interesting question anon. Its really only Pau Gasol on the big contract, but Ibaka has about $7mill on his contract over three years. In then end I suspect its because Spanish basketball has a lot more money than BA, but I'd be interested to know how much it cost them vs how much it would cost us to get Bogut in the green and gold.

To me, the difference in this game so far has been Spain's ability to get to the line and Ibaka's dominance of the defensive paint, which basically got them their lead. Pretty dodgy how quickly Spain have managed to get Ibaka into their national team when he is Congolese. I just hope we can convince Irving to play for Australia at next years Olympics!

Baynes has played the best I've seen him play. A couple of easy baskets have got his confidence up in this game.

Ingles has looked the most likely to create and score for us, but he has spent too much time on the bench in foul trouble.

He hasn't scored a lot, but I've liked the energy from Mills. He hasn't turned the ball over much and has done a good job defensively. We badly need him to start making some threes.

Other than that, if a few of our guys start shooting with some confidence from outside, we actually have the ability to win this. More than likely, we'll continue to build a brick sh!thouse and lose though...

Boomers 0/10 from 3pt Say no more.....

Holding Spain to 30 at the half is an outstanding effort. As others have said we are missing plenty of open looks. Missing Newley with his recent hot shooting.

Spain starting to control the game a bit now. Its mainly Ibaka inside with his shot-blocking, turning what would normally be an easy score for us into easy fast break points for Rubio!

We have to start hitting some of those open threes we are getting because we have no post scoring options at all.

Yeah, a few too many fouls from us, but defensively we've been really solid and we have created some decent shots from our offence as well.

What I want to know is, what is wrong with Newley and Maric? They haven't seen any time yet and we really need them.

Alright, nice stream LC! Good work mate. Lets go Boomers!

Ok, that site that LC gave a link to says that game time is 9:30pm Thursday night, presumably Spanish time as it is a Spanish website. That is 7:30 behind Adelaide, so tip off should be 5am for us Croweaters.

Thanks a bunch LC, will definitely be getting up for this one!

Here is a legit Spanish link to watch the game on: http://www.lasextadeportes.com/inicio

is it definitely 5:30am Australian time?

Thanks guys, thats a couple of good leads! Hopefully one of them comes through!

Beantown - the ACB website is the Spanish Basketball League (Liga) website.

www.acb.com - the hyperlink below:

Official Spanish ACB Website

Watch ACB & Spanish national team games online here: Official ACB TV Website

What's the ACB website Paul? Or did you mean ABC?

I often use MyP2P to find basketball streams, but I have not been able to access that page recently. This has happened before but then it has come back. Maybe its been shut down for breach of copyright or something?

Fingers crossed Paul!

we seem to be in them all teh time - can anyone tell me how many we have played in and the win / loss ration - and how many home and away

I have had many prelim heartbreaks with these girls !

lets hope they rise to put last years dissapointment out the way

Its early morning Australian time - 5:30am according to the site I checked earlier. I'm not very hopeful that I'll find a stream, but maybe someone will come through for us!

so is that friday morning Aus time or Spanish time? im hoping its Aus time so i can watch it thursday night here.