That's a strange argument Henry - have you thought this through?

"We're never going to be a high-powered offensive team. We've hung our hat on being able to guard teams. You know, we're getting up and down and trying to get the ball to the right people, we’re doing all of that, but we’ve really placed a lot of emphasis on defending"

He is completely right.
Defence wins championships. A team like the Boomers and the TB's etc. have to be defensively-minded because there's no way they can outscore some of the best International teams like Spain, USA, Turkey, Argentina.

Defence is a constant..Its something that can be done to the same level/similar level every single game. Offensively, you can have really good shooting nights and terrible shooting nights.

It makes sense to work on something which you can CONSTANTLY/CONSISTENTLY perform. The Boomers could work on their offence all they want, but you're still going to have bad shooting nights..and what if that was to happen in Game 3 of the FIBA Oceania qualifying series??

Henry, you picked a bad time to claim assists are down. Our team is leading this tournament with 17 apg, a pretty good number compared to usual international play. If you compare it to last years world championships, for example, that would have placed us 4th highest behind Spain, USA and Serbia, who all averaged just over 18 apg. In 2006, it would have placed us 3rd!

If you compare our ppg from the 2010 and 2006 World's you would see that we averaged 73.2 and 73.8 respectively - an infinitesimal difference. In this tournament we are averaging 73.5. Our FG% actually improved from 50% in 2006 to 53% in 2010 and is 49.4% in this tournament. So there has been very little change in our points and FG%.

Where we have been down is in 3pt% and that is just a weakness of these current Boomers. Having said that, Newley's return to form and the emergence of Dellavedova may start to improve our 3pt%. Better yet, if Greenwood and Bose can develop their all around games, they have shown nice shooting touch in the past.

I do agree with you sentiment that the Boomers should strive to improve their offence, but do you really think that Brown is NOT trying to improve his team's offence? It certainly isn't worse than it was under Goorjian. In fact, on some of the occasions I have watched the Boomers recently I have seen more purpose and good passing in our offence than I have seen in years. Its not consistent enough yet, but I think it is getting better. So I would take a quote like the one you used above with a grain of salt myself.

As far as some team selections go, I would agree that there has been a little inconsistency in some of the call ups, but as we are getting closer to the NZ series, I think Brown has clearly homed in on the best 12 players available. Cut Gibson and Kickert from the current 14 man squad and I think you clearly have the best 12 guys.

Defence gets you to a point but it is the stars who won the championships. Stars with offensive talent and skill!

So how come Lebron and Wade couldn't carry the Heat to the championship?

Beantown, great post.

Defense wins championships. Period.

And I'm sure the 1985 Adelaide 36ers, the 1998 SE Melbourne Magic and the 2006 USA Worlds' teams would agree that defence wins championships. Pure offence will only win All Star games.

The USA 2010 FIBA World Championship team had the 2nd best defense at the tournament.
They held their opponents to an average of just 68.2ppg.
In the final, they held Turkey to 64 points.

I rest my case. Defense wins championships.

Boomers will boom boom there way to a gold @ London

Statistically defence is relative to offence. I am guessing on that score the USA team was probably first at the WC's Macdub, do you know the differential on for and against for USA versus others?

They scored 92.8ppg and held teams to 68.2ppg.
Thats a huge difference of +24.6

Even if they were scoring 15-20 points less each game they still would have won. Thats how good their defense was.

thansk Macdub. I am never sold on least points allowed = best defence argument, it always has to be relative to your offensive style.

In a 40 minute game, 24 pts is huge.

Defense Wins Championships. Offense is fun to watch but does not get your far
See: Phoenix Suns

Brett deserves a shot at it now. I believe we should have stuck with Goorgian but right now Brett has done the hard yards & let's see how he goes. It's sink or swim time!! Mind you if he fails he'll smooth his way out of it with his yanky dribble (pun intended)!

Defense wins games? Last time I checked, scoring more than the opposition wins games. Defense and offense are just as important as each other.

USA held Turkey to 60 odd points but scored 90+, can't say it was defense that won that game, it just helped.

If Brett Brown is focusing only on defense he is setting himself up for failure, because he has plan A - restrict points, but what is plan B when they can't stop a team scoring?

Balance of defense and offense is vital! Miami lost the finals because offensively they couldnt keep up when their defense couldn't stop Dallas from hitting lucky shots.

Offence and defence win championships! Very few champion teams arent good at both.

Questioning Brown's comments doesnt mean you dont believe defence is important. I think anyone who follows it closely would realise Brown took over a Boomers team that average 90ppg at the Beijing Olympics, second in the tournament. So to me his comment that we will never be a high scoring team is complete ignorance or political-speak to cover himself.

He has chosen to change approach though and run as a half court team intent on grinding out victories, which is his right and obviously what he believes is the way forward. Unfortunately in key games against NZ in 09, and Serbia and Slovenia in 10 (not to mention Jordan!!) the team's defensive sets showed they are simply not capable of defending teams who execute well, because we play reactive defence based on packing the inside, allowing good teams to pick us apart for the shots they want.

Now hopefully Brown has made some adjustments this year, we will know in the next three weeks. If we win this NZ series playing well, not limping over the line against a good but realistically middle of the road international team, then that could give us some hope.

But if not, I think we should go for a coach with a better understanding of Australian style basketball, because our players grow up playing a style that is very different than what Brown has instituted, putting us at a disadvantage to teams who play the style they are most comfortable with. As I said, I look forward to seeing the adjustments that have been made, and hopefully a good middle ground has been found.

"If Brett Brown is focusing only on defense he is setting himself up for failure, because he has plan A - restrict points, but what is plan B when they can't stop a team scoring?"

DEFENSE is something which can be done relatively constantly. Put systems,rotations and defensive rules in place and your team will follow them and have the potential to be a CONSISTENTLY good Defensive team.

Anon, your saying our Plan A should be to score the basketball? Well, bad shooting nights are always going to come (they're inevitable). So when their shooting turns to custard, where do we go from there? Because if their defence isn't developed enough and they have a bad shooting night, then the Boomers dont have a Plan A or a Plan B. It makes sense to focus on defense--You don't want to be relying on your offense to get you Wins (And I'd say the Boomers are more pronged to bad shooting nights more than other teams)

Hell, I don't know how you could say all this Anon after what the Boomers are doing over in Europe..They're getting good results!
Team is playing great defense, and focussing on defense = Successful Euro tour thus far!

Henry, I'd be wary of hanging so much on post-game quotes and media release comments.

True Isaac, but Brown has made similar comments a few times and our game style reflects those comments. French basketball is dictated by defence and they have been reasonably successful with it, so there is nothing wrong with taking on that style, it's just the proof is in the pudding and we havent seen it yet in important games.

Hopefully this year.

Agree Henry - Brown makes subs way too much and does not allow a group to play together. Sometimes does not even allow a guy to get warm on the court! He is not the coach to guide us to the next level. Period!

I hope he does!

If you guys don't want Brett Brown, NZ will have him