NBA teams
Warren Yiu 5y

Boomers have some major issues they must fix

FIBA

MELBOURNE, Australia -- "It's a game of mistakes," said Gregg Popovich. The team that wins makes the least errors, or so it should be.

Australia outscored Team USA in fast-break points. They got to the line a staggering 21 times, shooting 12 more free throws than their opponent. They still lost.

In some ways, it was almost poetic that a Popovich team would rain midrange death on an opponent on its way to victory. Team USA took the shots the Boomers have been all too willing to yield -- whether through schematics or necessity because of available personnel -- hitting midrange shots with open glee, on their way to a 102-86 victory on Thursday.

A look at the shot chart is instructive: Team USA drilled 10 shots in those in-between spaces. The Boomers made one.

"The big [man] was pretty far back," said Kemba Walker, who was Team USA's top scorer with 23 points. "We just wanted our bigs to get a small piece of the guards."

Once Myles Turner or Brook Lopez were able to body and impede Australia's perimeter defenders, a juicy look would eventuate. They shot 2-pointers at 50 percent from the field.

In our preview of what to expect, we highlighted how deep the Boomers' big men were laying back in pick-and-roll coverages, openly yielding midrange looks. Only Jonah Bolden had the foot speed and length to defend higher up and disrupt -- to pose a question to the offence. Now that he's no longer with the team, there is no such option.

"Perhaps it felt a lot worse than it was," Boomers head coach, Andrej Lemanis said.

"I thought that we forced shots that we can win with," assistant coach Will Weaver said. "But the way we went about it, at times, wasn't consistent enough, wasn't forceful enough."

Instead, Lemanis feels the perception is skewed, when a cocktail of mishaps magnifies the effect of a handful of midrange jumpers.

Of particular note, Team USA destroyed the Boomers on the boards. The Americans had 30-21 rebounding edge at half-time, and increased that margin to 41-27 the end of the third quarter. They ended up annihilating the Boomers, 54-36, which included 16 second-chance points.

"One thing we did do was board the whole game. We hit the board hard," Popovich said.

"If we stay strong in terms of taking away the things that we want to take away from them, and keep forcing them to shoot those shots that we are prepared to live with, then the whole [situation] feels better," Lemanis said.

"If we're forcing jump shots," added Weaver, "we've got to make it one shot and out."

On the other end, Team USA rushed and harried, pushed and prodded, overwhelming the Boomers with sheer athleticism.

"As much as you hate to say it, our offence dictated how badly we played defence," Patty Mills said. Mills and Chris Goulding led the Boomers with 19 points each.

There were a number of desperate flips at the ring, when a Boomer was underneath the cup and had more time than he realised. They missed easy, close range looks, perhaps worried out of them with perceived pressure.

"But I think it was a couple of bad shots," Mills said. "Bad offensive plays. Didn't really move the ball, led to defensive rebounds, run-outs, dunks, 3s."

"They're playing small. They're playing fast," Weaver said of the need to value possession, rebound, and take care of the ball. "They have tonnes of shooting. You create octane -- you create fuel for them to push it. That's where the good shots come from."

The outside shooting of Joe Ingles and Matthew Dellavedova (some of his misses lately are way off) has become a concern. They also coughed up nine turnovers between them.

Goulding continued his strong play, sharing top billing with Mills on offence, and looking comfortable against NBA talent. On one particular possession, he nailed a fallaway over the outstretched hands of Jayson Tatum.

The Boomers' starting unit was a disaster in this game, oddly all of their 14 turnovers for the night were attributed to this group. Instead, their best lineups involved Bogut, Mills, Goulding and Nick Kay in some configuration.

Despite both Lemanis and Mills ruing defensive consistency, it felt as though the team showed much better energy in containing dribble penetration. There were still breakdowns. At one point in the second quarter, Ingles ran over a pick and stayed on Donovan Mitchell's hip, forcing him into help -- but there was no help.

And for the first time, we saw a tightened rotation from Lemanis, and a surprising starting five. Baynes was the preferred starting centre, joining Mills, Dellavedova, Ingles and Jock Landale (who has sealed the starting 4-spot) at the tip. For most of the game, Lemanis rolled with an eight-man rotation, with Bogut, Goulding and Kay getting the bulk of the bench minutes. Mitch Creek chipped in, but his minutes were slightly inflated at the end with garbage time.

It remains to be seen if there is further tinkering, but the sense is that this is the core eight-man rotation that will determine Australia's World Cup medal fate. A loss to Team USA in a warm-up game is certainly not a big deal, nor entirely unexpected. The competitive moments in the game would also have inspired a level of confidence.

One thought from Weaver lingers when he explained the difficulty of defending Team USA -- all the moving parts, and the mental exertion to keep track of players, of the scout, of the effort to make the extra defensive rotation: "It's not surprising that something might break loose."

For last night's game, what broke loose was defensive rebounding. But what it does highlight is that there is no margin for error in these sorts of games.

The Boomers will continue to grow, leading into the World Cup, but Saturday night offers the final opportunity before the team jets to China. And to have a chance to defeat Team USA, you can't make mistakes.

^ Back to Top ^