The game was sooo boring i left at half time. It was like watching paint dry. No inside game, no post player, no penetration - tough to watch.

honestly i reckon pat mills is better pg than mee he might as well start!!

Interestingly Heal said Patrick Mills would be 'better for the experience'. Shane, Mills showed more court sense and point guard direction in the minutes he got in this game, than you did your whole career!

Hey Rob you can add Newley to that list, that 4 will make way for the 4 not available.

"Cough-Wade-Cough-Helliwell-Cough!!!"

Any PT he is gifted is an indictment on the Boomers management/coaching staff...

Now you know why Newley isn't playing NBA..Now or ever!

Schenscher and Ingles would have definately played better then some of the others.

Take out Kendall, Hinder and add in Schenscher, Ingles

Because of one game where he had four points off the bench, and in a team where the focus on the night was on Andersen, with Mackinnon cleaning up after him?

He played 15 minutes and had 3 assists (compared to 0 from Mee, Mills and Kendall combined). His four points topped the starting shooting guard who played a couple more minutes.

His team also won the game.

Sure, he has some work to do before he makes the NBA, but judging him on one game is harsh and he is giving it a shot - I'd rather see that than him sticking with the NBL for the rest of his life.

Sure everyone ... we can remove all these guys but you are forgetting why they are in the team in the first place

Schenscher and Ingles would have definately played better then some of the others.

I was having a dig about Newley to see if I could get a bite. You South Australians sure are over protective of your home grown players. As far as Luke and Joe are concerned build a bridge.

Newley paired with Mills made things happen. The team was far more dangerous defensively with this pairing on the floor. Newls does neeed to check his shooting action though. Has got a little lazy on it with a flailing elbow and very little extension resulting in a flat shot.

You can't be serious about Castle? He barely has an impact with Wollongong. I'd rather they take Hoare or Crawford.

People, learn about basketball before you make random comments.

Newly is hopeless. He is a liability in defense, and jacks up ugly forced shots in offense. His assists were great but were produced from 1)a good defensive play and running from Sammy Mac and 2) a well set pick and roll from Hinder (who created good movement off the bench). Newly didn't create the plays, he was again disapointing in a match where he could of proved his potential.

Mills was the one who created the plays and not Newly. He split the defense and gave athletic players such as Sammy Mac and Saville to get open.

Jason Smith is on their for leadership, experience and court smarts, something Newly and most other NBL players who play that position don't have. He is also the teams strongest defensive player.

Hinder played good D and created movement in offense with screens and quick passes. Played well off the bench as a good backup.

Everone keeps mentioning that Gibson should be there........are you serious???? He is hopeless and Ryan looks out of his league at an international level. Ryan should have been the one replaced by Ingles.

Mee was too slow in defense for the quick NZ lineup but is experienced and able to run set plays a lot better than Mills (not bagging Mills, he looks to be a great player for Australia).

Kendall worked well at distributing the ball and creating movement in his limited court time, coming up with some key rebounds and possessions. He knows how to run a Goorj team and is a good backup to the 2 other PG's on the team.

Halliwell - again I say dud - He should have been replaced by Schenscher.

Worthington - strong off the bench, plays hard and does a great job.

Saville, Sammy Mac and Anderson - a league above the rest.

Goorj did a fantastic job of reading the game and changing offences, defences (press worried NZ into many turnovers) and player rotations.

P.S - for those other posts I read:

Shane Heal - why are you hating on one of Australia's greatest PG's?? He scores at will (admit sometimes over passing to better options) and has led Australia and any team he plays for into victory (or the best that the team can produce).

Boring Game - you have no idea about basketball then - it's called good defense.

Kings fan, eh? Seem to be a bit protective of Goorjian, Hinder, Smith, Kendall and Heal. I'm detecting a theme!

Good thing we have you bballfan31 to set us all straight on the Game! Otherwise I may have thought I was watching something else. And by the way good D is never boring I must have snoozed through that as well?

jason smith on there for his defence? You cant be serious.

bballfan31, that post was full of shite. Bagging out Newley like that, the guy is our best 2-man (by far). He looked tenative all night, didn't force anything and never found his rythm, yet he still cops crap for being erratic, selfish, etc. I would have thought by now he would've earnt the respect of fans from everywhere....

Your post became even worse when you started talking about Smith. No way is he the teams best defender, he's a step to slow these days and he was beaten off the dribble easily. If you consider 'court smarts' to be boring and uncreative play, where one is a passenger for most of the game, then yeah, Jason's you man. He doesn't add anything to this squad, IMO and shouldn't be there.

And what you wrote about Kendall! Please, 'key rebounds and possessions', he grabbed 2 boards, both of which were uncontested and fell into his lap and that was about all he did for the entire game. As for distributing the ball well... I'm glad you were impressed by making simple passes around the perimeter without turning the ball over.

You're not wrong, actually Dragons fan but yeah Kings 2nd.

But I also think that Smith crumbles in international play, Hinder isn't up to the standard of other international teams at the moment and Kendall hasn't been the same since his injury.

However I haven't seen any better performers and people claiming that players such as ryan, gibson, newly, halliwell and others belong in the team more than those kings players are lost.

In an international side I would take Smith, Kendall and Hinder over Halliwell, Ryan and Newly any day. Kings fan or not.

It is not good de if the opposition keeps missing open looks. That is what made the game poor. Ryan is not up to this level because he is one dimentional. He will have good games when he makes a couple of early shots. bballfan31 you are so far off the mark it is more boring then the game. Ask Joey Wright if he thinks Gibson is hopeless. Aust only good minutes were when Mills was on - lets try some more youth.

Kendall who is barely holding down his spot at the Kings most times? Simply can't agree with that. I'd rather have Newley, Ryan, or Ingles in ahead of Kendall.

Your kidding, right? You think Kendall should be there, and not Newley? Kendall has been nothing but horrible in pretty much all of his Boomers outings, while Newls is probably our most explosive scorer. Yes he had an off night on Monday, but he's the best 2-guard in Australia and when he's playing well, he's a scoring machine

I agree with you that Gibbo and Helliwell shouldn't be there (I don't think any one has said they belong there?) and we haven't seen enough of Ryan to judge him off, but you gotta lay off Newley. Especially when the two guys you are trying to make a case for are Smith and Kendall. It's basically a 6'7 athletic scorer vs two 6'4 one dimensioanl players.

If Newley wasn't a South Australian most people on this site would be bagging him and if Kendell was a South Aussie they would be saying how he should be there, that the way this site is, its called SA Hoops. so bballfan31 where I agree with most of what your saying maybe OZ hoops is a better forum to air it on.
South Australian born players are protected and praised on this site and many believe that's all that should be in the Australian team along with there great coach that's why they hate Brian G so much, if Gaze had taken over the Australian team after Sir Phil they would of hated him. They have to beat something up the 36ers are also rans.

I hardly think that you should be surprised at that, and you should also note that it's a generalisation.

I, for example, have really only argued Ingles' case (and many outside of SA have done the same), not so much for Schenscher, Holmes or Forman. I don't think Smyth should be the Boomers coach either.

The general disapproval of Kendall's inclusion is nation-wide going by posts on OzHoops also.

Twenty four, gotta pull you up on the one-dimensional tags for those Kings. I'd say Newley is more one-dimensional than either of Smith or Kendall. Both of those guys can play a bit of D, score and distribute a little better, whereas Newley's main thing is scoring.

So if you don't like it bein pro SA on a SA site, piss off then..

Agreed Newly is an explosive scorer......in the NBL......with tight defense (such as in NBA summer league and international play) he crumbles. He also doesn't play defense and constantly racks up a high foul count. Dont get me wrong - I would love for Newly to be the next big thing in Aussie BBall as the sport needs it but he is just not there yet. However Australia lacks on guards at the 2 spot and Newly and Smith are good choices for the boomers.

And yes - Smith is the best perimiter defender Australia has, he may be one step to slow on Dickel, but on most other players he does a better job than anyone else (see what happens the majority of the time Sydney play Townsville - Smith on Newly - eg. 06/07 finals).

Check your replays of Mondays game and see how many Penny scored when Smith was on him. And how many he did when others were.

Kendall is very average. I do not disagree. But Goorj likes to rotate PG's and he is the next best PG option for Australia. Ingles is one of my fav players - he is not a PG. He is a SF. I would still rather Saville or Sammy Mac in that role than him.

And YES, the boomers played tight defense, how do some people not see that. NZ missed shots - most of them because they were contested!! Aus forced NZ into double the amount of turnovers than Australia.
Leave at half time??? No matter if your Aus or NZ fan.....thats disgraceful.

You are so right Kenny Smyth

The way Goorjian used Hinder, Helliwell, Kendall and Ryan would surely suggest that Ingles and Schenscher would be better options long term. Far more potential with these two guys who will get better due to their youth, not sure that can be said about the other 4. Ryan especially is out of his depth. Ingles could certainly have done what he provided and dare I say it, a lot more. Hell, if you're going to give out garbage minutes to Helliwell wouldn't that have been better served for a Schenscher?

I don't know Isaac. Smith has been slowing down a fair bit in the past 12 months or so, I don't really rate him that greater defender anymore. He really didn't have an impact at all on Monday and I think the only real thing he can provide is a bit of spot-up shooting. Of course, that's just my opinion.

As for Kendall, I guess he isn't really a 'one dimensional player' but he doesn't really do anything all too well. He's a streaky scorer (more often cold than hot), turnover prone and goes missing a lot. I guess he can D up a little, but at this level he's not really anything more than an OK defender who can bring the ball up the court (most of the time;-) ).

Anyways, I know you weren't arguing with me, so I'll finish my ridiculously anti-Kings rant now&

By the way, those doubting Ryan, I believe he was one of the top scorers over in Europe? I think he should be in there, every team needs a pure gunner from 3 and he is definately that.

bballfan, Newley doesn't crumble at International level. He had 21 against Turkey to lead Boomers scorers the other week. In the game before, he had 12 against Senegal (Ryan and Andersen had 16 and 15). He had an equal best (for Boomers) 14 against Serbia.

This is all after coming back from an ankle injury.

You can say that he gives up a few turnovers. You can say that he might not make the NBA. And you could call him a bit one-dimensional compared to a Sam Mackinnon, but I really don't think you can say that he crumbles at International level.

I think it's poignant to remember that these two teams have scouted the shit out of each other. On the Europe tour a lot of the guys (Ryan for example) had the 'unknown' factor going for them. In a series like this the players face different pressures than what they would in a tour game. The ones who can step up now with the opposition fully ready for them deserve a lot of credit.

Good call Izzi. Isaac I agree that Newly played well on some exhibition games, but you have to realise that Ryan constantly performed well and so did others that had good court time to prepare them for the fiba oceania championships. There was a mix of rotations that Goorj was trying out and it isn't reflective of normal competitions.

Newly definitely is more one-dimensional than Kendall and Smith, however he has the potential to be much better than them. He, like Kendall is streaky, when he is good, hes great, however most of the time I have watched him for the boomers he has been very disapointing.

Smith does only offer spot up shooting in offense now as he is getting on and cant penetrate anymore, but his main use on the court is defense. He is slower than someone like Dickel, but on everyone else he is a fantastic defender.

The Boomers were crying out for Ingles out there. He's one of the best slashers and penetrators in the country, which is exactly what we needed. You can break down every roster spot into positions but we need guys who can be creative and innovative or we will just see ball swings and contested 3s.

There was a mix of rotations that Goorj was trying out and it isn't reflective of normal competitions.

People, did we not get a win (and a fairly convincing one at that) against a team that beat us last series? Are we forgetting that basketball is a team sport, and in the end the Boomers seemed to play fairly well together.

And to be making some of these calls on players after one game is outrageous!

I believe the NZ coach needs to take a fair amount of the blame for that loss. Bradshaw was a real headache for us early but was hardly sighted in the second half. Dickel I see can be erratic but they were more potent when he was running the point. His minutes were limited. Live with the odd turnover from being out of control every now and then. Penney has the potential to be a game winner or a cancer, but in the situation they are now in the coach needs to role the dice and play him. Phil Jones needs to be injected at the right times and I would suggest that's when Dickel is on, penetrating and dishing.
You can question some of Goorj's picks but I will say this, all of those players have bought into his system. As a coach that is critical and I might suggest is a reason some are there at the expense of others. Australia's defence was unrelenting and wore NZ down. Expect a fight tonight if NZ are going to stand up and have a go. (Well at least some pushing and shoving!) It is inevitable if NZ come with the right frame of mind to face that kind of defensive pressure again. Hell I love international 'ball!!!!

lockstock agreed, Izzy agree with that first paragraph, spot on..

It will be on tonight, especially for the first quarter, expect to see Pero use his considerable size to good effect, and (hopefully, even if it is just to stop bballfan giving it to him after ONE bad game) Newley shows us what we know he can do. Anderson to back up a good game 1 with the same sort of game, and Penney, Dickel and Bradshaw to bring their A games.

Boomers by 8.

I say Kiwis by 12 and game 3 will be a live one. i am thinking NZ will make the adjustments and have the capacity to adjust. Gorg will stick with what worked and over play Anderson and Sam. Kiwis will know what to expect. But i could be wrong and its a repeat of monday.