Hoops

We choked...how do we fix it

" They have the amazing inability to put the nail in the coffin of the opposition and that dear people is the truth whether you like it or not. In that crucial time of a game you need players to show the killer instinct and not a single player showed that. WHY? "

Because you haven't seen Mills play for the Boomers prior to the medal games?

"I also think we need to understand that this particular group have had their chances and have repeatedly come up short. If we go back to the same well in 2020 we will be very disappointed with the outcome."

2016 Boomers were a referees call away from Bronze. 2019 Boomers were fatigue away from gold medal game. I'm not sure they've come up short enough that we should completely restructure how we do things. We are one of only two teams to have made the medal rounds over the past two tournaments and our recent success has seen us ranked 3rd in the world by FIBA. It may not have come to a medal just yet, but it aint "broke".

Ben SImmons, Ryan Broekhoff, Thon Maker, Dante Exum. These guys with their length, athletcism and pedigree alone can elevate the Boomers to the medal dias.

My team for Tokyo -

Matthew Dellavedova
Patty Mills
Joe Ingles
Ben Simmons
Aron Baynes

Dante Exum
Bryce Cotton (or Goulding if not naturalized)
Ryan Broekhoff
Thon Maker
Andrew Bogut
Nick Kay
Mitch Creek

The ability to interchange the guards and small forwards without losing much will be the difference for the team, then you have Simmons who can play and defend any position. Nick Kay and Mitch Creek come in for that effort and intensity. Nick Kay's work on the boards should not be overlooked, nor his penchant for getting himself in the right place. Mitch Creek was great as a lockdown defender and could be used as a specialist off the bench at this role. Ideally the team would generally go 10 deep, but in that 10 you have ample rest for ALL positions, not just the bigs.

As for why Bolden isn't there, Bolden might take Kay's spot if he makes ammends but I don't think he instantly deserves starter minutes. Landale fell apart during the actual tournament so isn't a shoe-in for me. Certainly has the potential though but I wouldn't throw him in above anyone listed yet. Adel hasn't proven enough to me to make it. Josh Green not there because we haven't seen enough from him yet.

I think there is 'some' truth to what Ratbag is saying to some extent, not so much in "manliness" but the players we produce tend to be basketball robots of the Adam Gibson mould - solid, unspectacular, able to run a system very well, disciplined, but struggle to create anything on their own.

When you have 10 or 11 guys who fit that description on a national team, you have moments like the end of the France game when Patty Mills was being denied the ball and no one else had the balls to make a play for themselves. It wouldn;t hurt if some of our guys took after Patty and Goulding just sometimes in that respect. I mean, we had Joe Ingles forgo taking an open lay up to pass the ball out of bounds.

"Tanking
Removing court decals without authorisation
Brawling
Publicly admonishing referees and accusing FIBA of conspiracy
Trash talking
Disrespecting 'lesser' opponents

All under the current coaching and leadership's watch
Without justification, cause they don't win

They don't seem overly 'nice' to the Ballmus"

The tanking is something every European team has done, but for some reason becomes an issue worth investigating when it appears Australia did it.
Brawling, well, I am not sure how you can blame Australia specifically for that. Daniel Kickert is a fucking dickhead but they did start it by tripping players at the half court line.
Decal - meh. Apparently they needed to train on the court and that was in the way. I don't know the specifics.
Trash talking. They wouldn't be the first team on planet earth to do that but if it gets them in the zone, fair play.
Publicly admonishing referees. Well this I don't agree with. Talking about conspiracies and the like doesn't exactly get us calls or respect from FIBA. In fact it could prove to have the opposite effect. We might need to start licking ass if we want those important last-minute calls.
Direspecting 'lesser' opponents. Depends how you mean?

The Boomers haven't been choir boys and I don't like some of what they do but this comes back to a team having an ego. To be successful in basketball you need to have that ego and I wouldn't want to knock it out of them.

By the way, just on Slovenia, I forgot to mention they won Eurobasket as recently as 2017.

"Grow up Australia and bring back the MANLINESS into the sport."

Do you realize you are talking about a group of NBA players that are constantly labelled dirty and rough in the NBA? They are the infamous hard screeners, the scrappy defenders, or trash-talkers. Do you realize that this is a team that even the Lithuanian coach complained that the refs let them play too rough? (There might've been some response to that from the refs in subsequent games). Complain all you like about our lack of offensive guard talent, which surely is related to talent being drawn into other sports, but it's players like Delly, Baynes and Bogut that have physicality as a trademark of their game.

"I remind you that the tiny nation of Slovenia"

Look at the talent coming from Slovenia: Goran Dragic, Beno Udrih, Rasho Nesterovic, Bostjan Nachbar, Anthony Randolph, Uros Slokar, Sasha Vujacic. Then there is a little known player called Luka Doncic. You might have heard of him. Slovenia didn't even qualify for the World Cup. Some might say this indicates the high standard of competition in Europe.

Australian basketball ain't all that you seem to think it is, on a world scale. Top 4 is a great result for Australian basketball for this World Cup. I don't understand how people still don't appreciate this. This is the first time we achieved that outside of the Olympics. That means it was the first time without being handed an affirmative action regional spot alongside other minnows also given affirmative action by FIBA, which means there were just 8-9 quality opponents in the tournament, such that we really just needed one upset against a quarter-finalist to go top 4. In this World Cup, we seriously earned that top 4 spot the hard way advancing through two really tough group stages undefeated, then rewarded with the easiest quarter-finalist opponent.

Granddad, stop posting on hoops, you're embarrassing me and yourself

That will mean that the referees will need to be TOLD to stop with the over officiating

neutered woosses

Ratbag,

The rugby World Cup hasn’t started yet, think you got your sports mixed up. Maybe you want to lay off booze for a while.

What if we got Pop and Kerr? They're fantastic NBA coaches who took an all-NBA roster to 7th.

"We give the ball to Dante Exum and Ben Simmons, and delly sits on the bench."

I love Delly. He's an NBA champion for a reason. And his games in his first NBA finals appearance are legendary.

But he cannot create shot for himself when the defense is locked on him. Hopefully we get Simmons and Exum who can create better shots for themselves and others..

FWIW... I'd be happy seeing Delly come off the bench if Exum comes good after this latest injury

"Said it before and I'll say it again, Boomers should have taken Damien Martin to back up Delly minutes, plays the same aggressive D, plays team orientated basketball, doesn't turn the ball over much. That Sobey spot was wasted. would have given us an option to lock down a guard and to bench Delly when he was playing shit."

Martin and Lisch would have been able to provide back up minutes.

Delly when pressured couldn't get the offense until late in the shot clock.

That stat highlights it. Our guard rotation was far too taxing on those 3. Add Simmons and Exum to that rotation, whether we retain Goulding or not, and it will make a big difference.

I had assumed that Martin was not available or retired, but I tend to agree that he may have been useful in this World Cup. It's too much to expect Delly's high level of defensive tenacity to be maintained for 244 minutes in 8 games while also running the offense for most of the time.

World Cup Top 20 minutes played:

1 Patty Mills (AUS)‎ 271
2 Joe Ingles (AUS)‎ 271
3 Tomas Satoransky (CZE)‎ 265
4 Adam Waczynski (POL)‎ 251
5 Matthew Dellavedova (AUS) ‎ 244
6 Jaromir Bohacik (CZE)‎ 242
7 A.J. Slaughter (POL)‎ 238
8 Luís Scola (ARG)‎ 236
9 Facundo Campazzo (ARG)‎ 233
10 Mateusz Ponitka (POL)‎ 229
11 Marc Gasol (ESP)‎ 228
12 Vojtech Hruban (CZE)‎ 227
13 Evan Fournier (FRA)‎ 225
14 Bogdan Bogdanovic (SRB)‎ 224
15 Donovan Mitchell (USA)‎ 217
16 Rudy Fernandez (ESP)‎ 216
17 Harrison Barnes (USA)‎ 212
18 Ondrej Balvín (CZE)‎ 210
19 Ricky Rubio (ESP)‎ 210
20 Nicolas Batum (FRA)‎ 209

"who are the magical fiba experienced players from Australia ?"

Here's a good list:

Bogut - 3 Olympics, 2 World Cups, debuted in 04 Olympics
Mills - 3 Olympics, 2 World Cups, debuted in 07 Oceania Champs
Ingles - 3 Olympics, 3 World Cups, debuted in 08 Olympics
Dellavedova - 2 Olympics, 2 World Cups, debuted in 09 Oceania Champs
Baynes - 2 Olympics, 3 World Cups, debuted in 09 Oceania Champs
Broekhoff - 1 Olympics, 1 World Cup, debuted in 14 World Cup
Goulding - 1 Olympics, 2 World Cups, debuted in 14 World Cup

All these guys have played multiple tournaments and learned their teammates, their system and the international game. It's this experience and the consistency of the Boomers programs that allows them to utilise their talents and make the team to be a top 4 team in the world.

In contrast, the USA with more talent but less international experience and less consistency in the program, and a coach with less knowledge of the international game, finished 7th this year.

"Who are the magical fiba experience players you speak off? And why didn’t we use them this World Cup?"

We did, and they are the key to us being one of the very best teams in the world. In fact, one of only two teams to make the medal rounds in both Rio and China. Pleasingly, we added to our core this year with a couple of key grunt players learning the FIBA game.

If we keep the core of this team together, bring back Broekhoff and his valuable shooting and length, and then add Simmons and Exum for athleticism we are in good shape to again make a run at it.

The reality is there are seven brilliant national teams in the world, and others very capable on their day, so top 4 is a great effort we'll have to play very well to repeat, but if we can add those players around our core we'll give ourselves a good chance.

If Mills learns to dribble between his legs.
If Bogut takes care of the ball after rebounding.
If Ingles stops throwing airballs.

Not doing all the above in a 40 second period will help.

"To win the World Cup the boomers needed the full team of nba players on the roster."

There was one team with a full team of NBA players and they came 7th. Argentina without any came 2nd. What we need is players with FIBA experience, around whom we can slot in Simmons (touch wood he plays) as a difference maker.

Said it before and I'll say it again, Boomers should have taken Damien Martin to back up Delly minutes, plays the same aggressive D, plays team orientated basketball, doesn't turn the ball over much. That Sobey spot was wasted. would have given us an option to lock down a guard and to bench Delly when he was playing shit.

Simmons on this team will make a big difference.
Delly can't shoot anyway, so having the primary ball carrier as someone who can actually penetrate and finish, or dish to the shooters will change the way we play.
Having Goulding/Broekhoff and Ingles on each wing, with Patty cutting to the top, Baynes down low, and Simmons rolling to the basket will make us very hard to match up on.
Patty was really the only one who consistently could create shots for himself, and would get inside for the easy points.
Against Spain and France, Delly and Ingles played way too passive, which meant the defence could press up higher on us without having to protect the drive. This meant we got stuck around the 3 point line or higher in the half court, and it was a lot harder to get the shooters open. Led to a lot of turnovers and loose passes, and rushed/forced shots.
We really needed a second point guard. With Delly as the only real natural point on the roster, we were forced to play him big minutes, and against the tight defences, his lack of penetration was exposed.

On a brief overview, you could be forgiven for thinking Australia choked themselves out of a medal. Double digit lead in the third quarter and then lost, in the semi and again in the Bronze game.

But look closer and I think fatigue was the major issue. Both games, our ball movement slowed down and the offense wasn’t flowing because the D was one step ahead and reading us like a book. That can happen when you’ve played 8 physical games in 14 days travelling across China, or when you’re playing against an elite defensive unit like Spain, who were the best defensive team in the Cup. Especially when they had an extra day and a half’s break.

It's not surprising given an issue with the roster- the Boomers relied on the offensive sets and crisp passing to get scores, because Patty is the only guy who can consistently go one on one. And even he’s more comfortable coming off screens than going iso.

If Simmons plays in Tokyo, hopefully we have the best of both worlds- a cohesive unit with smart offensive sets, along with another elite scorer who can bail us out one-on-one when required.

I don't think the history plays a part here. Like other teams, we were missing useful players. We took the winners further than any other team, so we were definitely in the mix. You could argue that we were one shot off winning the whole thing seeing how Spain dealt with Argentina. But, we had solid leads and lost them to experienced teams.

Seems more down to adjustments after half-time or later in the game? Or reaction of key players when it counted. Sometimes it feels like we live or die by Delly's offensive status - if his three doesn't hit, it's ugly. Things got a bit wayward at times - maybe tiredness from the two key guards because it was a step down from Patty/Delly to Gliddon, Sobey, etc. Patty played 45 minutes against Spain.

We went from shooting threes well to 10/40 against Spain and 4/17 against France. 22 turnovers against Spain, and 19 against France.

It is worrying for sure.

It means that the Boomers have basically lost all 5 of their last 'crucial games' at either the World Cup or Olympics since 2014 (Round of 16 game in 2014, Semi and 3rd place playoff in 2016 and semi and 3rd playoff again in 2019).

It was the manner in which some of those games were lost - they should have been closed out (bar the semi in 2016 where they did get spanked).

That can start to have an effect psychologically - so it is something that the team needs to sort out - closing out those big games.

Granted new players may come along (who won't have been exposed to 2014, 2016 and 2019), however its likely the same coach will still be there. So coaching in late game stages definitely needs to be reviewed post-tournament (not saying it was Lemanis' fault but just something worth reviewing).

more threads on the topic.. yes definitely more threads required !