Hoops

Opals Game 4 - Japan - 06:45 AEST

Atm it's looking like..

USA -gold
Spain -silver
Canada -bronze
Australia
Japan
Turkey
Belarus
China
Brazil
Serbia
Senegal

This was the topic back before the personal snipping and sing-a-long of "Everything is Awesome" began lol: the top teams in the tournament after the USA. After watching all 4 Opals games, I'm not convinced the Opals are the clear 2 spot.

IMO Spain is currently playing better than the Opals, their coach is actually rotating through resting his key players for the knock out games, and they are arguably deeper at all but 1.5 positions (the .5 depending on which version of Penny Taylor shows up). Opals certainly don't have a defensive answer to Alba Torrens, which could cause a big problem if their young athletic C gets Liz into foul trouble. If we thought defending the pick and roll was bad against Japan...

Hahahaha, that's a winning post Luuuc!

Looks like you've busted me, _Strungout_
I've got nothing.
Allow me to revise my opinion on things

* There is no scope for improvement in any area
* Everyone is awesome
* Everything is perfect

_strungoat_ too funny

Luuuc - I don't need to see your credentials. Your posting is balanced and includes balanced evaluations, based on your perspective.

titan 34 typo myself brendan joyce

getonboard - there you go, thinking that making a typo in someone's name is a measure of ones credentials.

@ Luuuc well rounded/balanced post although I'm gonna need to see those credentials.

Can't say I agree with you about that, Nix36.
I've been following Erin for a long time in the game and point guard has never been an ideal position for her. She's competent, but her ability to read defences and decision-making with the ball is not her strength. Very surprised you'd want to take the ball out of Leilani's hands given the near-perfect way she has run the team, balancing distribution with staying aggressive with her own scoring. She has been running the point at the top level for many years and is very poised as a result.

The guard spots are the least of the Opals worries IMO. The starting combo is good, and both Lavey & Ebzery make meaningful contributions when they come in as well. (I would actually consider starting them next game, and have Leilani & Erin come in for 15 minutes each tops, just to give them some breathers)

If you watch the games closely and where they are off the ball in O and D, Burton i think is unfairly criticized

Titan 34 you do not even know the coaches name , that shows how much you know (brendon joyce)

getonboard, annoy and anonymous you are laughable. Fact that posters don't agree with your views doesn't make them un-Australian and it doesn't mean they don't want Opals to win!

There are some great players on the Opals team but not everyone selected is the best this country has to offer.

There are many that believe Brandon is not a good coach and has made some questionable decisions, they cannot possibly be all family members.

Seems to me you protest too much. maybe you're the family members of the coach or those that a considered as ordinary selections. Or Brandon him self.

Here you are hiding behind your anonymous names attacking others for posting anonymously. Seeking posters to show proof of credentials before making posts should apply to you as well.

Posters should not be attacked for having different views. From what I saw of the games criticism should be expected.

We're lucky for having some great players in the team and its credit to them that we are 4-0.

@ - getonboard

show us your credentials...

You sound like a smart forum poster with basketball knowledge.

Joyce "Worst opals Choach in History" - Sorry nope: not even second worst,

Robbie Cadee would probably be given that award,in respect of his inability to choose the right basketball talent, closely followed by Brendan Flynn.

But Joyce is a clear medalist in the event

totally agree with anon 594827,


show us your credentials before throwing shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The defensive adjustment obviously came a little late but still a great comeback.

Again great offensive production from Cambage, especially when we started reversing the ball more effectively and figured out how to consistently exploit the front-court mismatches.

A side note also, we should all be very thankful that Mitchell found her way into our program.

We need to produce more Penny Taylor types in this country. Obviously not everyone can be as good as her, but there aren't enough players around her size with the ability to get to the rim AND/OR pull up when offensive sets break down.

Also I really loved the way Japan played. Just relentless pushing the ball and playing with such an infectious spirit that I ended up feeling a little bad for them when they couldn't hold on.

Exactly. After the start the Opals were great against Brazil and they were great against France. Turkey and Japan are good teams but things could have been done better so we point them out. They did well to win but they have to play better.

Nothing but support in the Opals game v France. The girls were awesome.

Nothing but support for for every Boomers game so far.

In games when things go poorly, myself and other forum posters will make suggestions for potential improvements.

If that is being unpatriotic then all interwebs forums should be closed right now.

Insert - "Good Job Good Effort" meme if that is the only type of post we are allowed to make.

^Hey Anon, What was said exactly in this thread that you don't agree with. Any Basketball minded person that watched the game today noticed the glaring coaching mistakes that could have cost us a shot at the USA in the Gold medal game....when this happens you are of course going to get posts about it, it is a basketball discussion forum.

To all you tall poppy knockers, before you go again at the Opals coaches and players please include a brief resume of your own personal experience of coaching/playing/team selecting at international level.
Easiest thing in the world is to throw shit from afar when well hidden.
Get some balls and be Australian. And STFU if you can't be positive about a group representing your country.

A few trump supporters on this thread...
Follow the leader.

Fact is burton has been more than terrible. She was out run by her opponents time and time again. How many times did she over play her man resulting in a layup via pick and roll.

Who plays the PF minutes has to depend on the opposition. Against Brazil coaches made a good adjustment to go big to counter their strong bigs, Tolo and George doing a good job.

Against Turkey we got murdered with Tolo and George there, they just couldn't guard the oppo. Good adjustment against France with Burton and Hodges doing an excellent defensive job. Against Japan, once it was clear no one could match their bigs' speed it was time to go more with Tolo and exploit them at the other end, which we eventually did.

Against Spain and Serbia we will need mostly speed, against the US a mix of both. We have good versatility in the front court, it's just a matter of getting right lineup for the right moment.

Annoy 100% correct

getonboard the Opal plane!!!!

Brendan?

So frustrating...

You can clearly see the the best front line is clearly tolo with cambage.

The backups should have been George and batkovic who already have chemistry by playing with the Townsville fire.

both burton and hodges... Just not up to the task..
Could have used Allen also for one of jarry or Talbot.

Burton does nothing! Doesn't score, doesn't rebound and always her player score on her! We are shocking with her on the court! She does nothing but her keeps putting her on!

Liz wasn't in foul trouble but played 20 odd minutes when she was killing it

Joyce gives no confidence to Erin phillips at all

Worst Opals coach in history!

Starting 5 should be

Mitchell
Phillips
Taylor
Tolo
Cambage

The next two subs should be hodges and ebzery

This is just a joke! So frustrating to watch! The team could have been so much better but even the team he chose he is still coaching them in the wrong way

did the players on the court have any responsibility to stop the pick and roll and the dribble penetration?

We could all see it!!!

needed to look at who was on the crt at the time

did the players on the court have any responsibility to stop the pick and roll and the dribble penetration?

We could all see it!!!

Fair enough Paul.

It isn't to say that I think the likes of Turkey, Canada etc aren't capable of competing and beating us, but looking past the Ws and margins I don't think the Opals have played great basketball - only for spurts, and only because (I believe) we're more talented.

The fact we have so many players on the team with international and/or WNBA experience (with a few current/former WNBA players missing out on the final 12) would attest to this.

If I'm right, I suspect our play won't improve substantially over the course of the tournament. Hopefully I'm proven wrong.

I love Taylor's secondary huddles after timeouts.

"Forget what he said, this is what we're doing."


Absolutely right no good 'international' coach as he likes to
Think of himself as would allow his team to get into a double digit deficit by 3/4 time

Taylor needs a good rest, unfortunately we don't have anyone to cover her position. Jenna Ohea would have been handy to run some plays through, certainly better than some others we have in Rio.
If the Opals gave Burtons minutes to Jarry, Hodges & George we could have bought a scoring role player like Ohea or Spider Allen.

"The Opals then started operating better on offence through their high posts Liz Cambage and Nat Burton, creating much better opportunities to score and clawed their way back into the match. A tough, driving bucket from Cambage, giving her 11 points for the quarter, gave Australia a two-point lead inside the last minute."

"The 33-15 final term was founded on a masterful defensive change-up to a zone by coach Brendan Joyce and means the Opals will almost certainly finish on top of their pool."

Newspaper reports

He's using Burton as a decoy so teams don't get a good scout on all our real plays. Right?

Why doesn't he start the game with the group that seems to bail them out and finish most games?

"If we didn't have clearly the second-most talented team in the tournament"

I don't agree with that. We are certainly in that conversation, and our top three are the second best, but there are a number of other talented teams at this tournament.

Coaching was poor today, but I don't think it's been poor all tournament. At the end of the day we are 4-0 and +47 after playing four good teams.

We haven't reached the heights of 2014 yet - there were some great signs of that against France - but it's the knockout games that will decide whether the style and roster Joyce has chosen was the right one.

Agree 100% Paul. Our offense was predictable and stagnant, and our defense was very reactive.

If we didn't have clearly the second-most talented team in the tournament, I think we would have lost to Turkey and Japan. Both nations (particularly Japan) appear to be much better prepared than our girls.

Given that the girls appear to be working hard and playing selflessly, the inability to play to their potential is on the coach.

I'll give Joyce the benefit of the doubt regarding the 2-3 zone: perhaps he didn't want to show too much this early in the tournament. Waiting until we were down by double figures could have been a recipe for disaster though.

Joyce is going to wear Taylor's body out before we even get to knock out stages.

Wilson, they were shooting the lights out because they were getting open shots from penetration against man. What was killing us was the easy ones from inside. We were always going to have to live with some threes, but until the fourth we weren't taking anything away from them, just playing reactive defence. Poor coaching.

our D played too high and allowed the pick and roll and dribble penetration to the basket for most of the game Japan were outstanding in identifying where they could score and sticking with it.

In the end a great confidence booster to the team that they were able to come back from 16pts down in the 4th quarter. Not many teams can do that!

I love Taylor's secondary huddles after timeouts.

"Forget what he said, this is what we're doing."

To be fair, Japan were shooting the lights out in the third quarter so a zone wouldn't have been the best option then.

To play Liz more we had to play zone, we should have been mixing up our D from the opening minutes. Our ball-screen defence was embarrassing, which was a mixture of bad coaching and our girls not being locked into the job at hand.

Credit to Japan, they are a good team and played outstanding basketball, but we played dumb for most of the game and were coached dumb for most of the game which helped the, to play so well.

"Somehow it took Joyce more than three quarters to figure that out."

Not only that, but at some point during the 4th Q at a TO you can clearly hear Taylor telling him "No we need to stay in this zone".

I don't know what to expect from this team. I wouldn't be surprised with silver, I wouldn't be surprised with no medal.

lol it doesn't take much logic to figure out Liz should have played more... Japan are too small we needed to use our height

Pretty inept in-game performance by Joyce. Japan's advantage is speed, ours size, so you go big and play zone, right? So Cambage can intimidate close to the basket rather than chasing quicker players around near the perimeter, right?

Somehow it took Joyce more than three quarters to figure that out.

As soon as we started making them shoot shots over hands rather than on close-outs their percentage dropped, we were able to get into offence early in the clock and they had no answer to our execution, which was superb in the final quarter and obviously very well finished off by Liz.

Is there anywhere that shows game stats and preferably cumulative stats.

Crossover is too early to tell yet, probably Spain.

Saw a couple of highlights, looked like no one on the Japan team could guard Liz, anyway we got out of jail and continue onto the finals, well done girls!

Jarry was bad this game but she hasn't got to play much, she tries to force things in the few minutes she gets.

That was insane. Mostly because I can't believe we were down 16 to Japan in the first place.

I know there are still games to be played, but can anyone tell me who are our projected match ups for the first cross over?