Basketball: Boomers can only get better, warns Goorjian

The Tall Blacks can expect little respite in the second Oceania series basketball test tomorrow, with Australian coach Brian Goorjian predicting more glory for his players.

Ominously for New Zealand, Goorjian, who led the Sydney Kings to consecutive Australian National Basketball League titles this year, believes his team are improving with every outing.

"I said this about the group that we're going to get better with each tournament," Goorjian said after his side won the first test 82-69 here on Wednesday night.

"Each game we play in and we're better now then we were in Australia, and we're better in when we were in China."

If the Boomers improved on winning the inaugural Gaze Cup at the Four-Nations tournament in Sydney last week, and their unbeaten run in China last month, it can only spell trouble for New Zealand, who need to turn around the comprehensive first test beating.

Defeat here tomorrow will hand Australia the top Oceania zone seeding for the 2006 world championships in Japan, sending New Zealand into a much tougher draw for the 24-team event which begins a year from today.

Unlike his counterpart Tab Baldwin, Goorjian has only five members of his 2004 Olympic Games squad with him and has blooded some new recruits.

Australia are also missing the 2.13m Andrew Bogut, the National Basketball Association's No 1 draft pick signed by the Milwaukee Bucks.

"We're a kind of unknown quantity," said Goorjian, who is into his third year as Boomers head coach.

"It's a new group that's just started playing together this year for about a month. Then we added a few players leading into this series.

"It's a team that hasn't played together much and accomplished anything yet."

Goorjian expects an improvement tomorrow from his forward combination of David Andersen, Matthew Nielsen and Wade Helliwell, three players who were influential in denying the Tall Blacks on defence, while making some pivotal scores.

Nielsen, who contained brawny Tall Blacks captain Pero Cameron on Wednesday, said they expected a backlash from the hosts, who failed to impose their traditionally physical approach.

"We know physically they're going to hit back and they'll be well prepared. But we'll make sure we'll be ready to go for game two," Nielsen said.

"They have a lot of options in their playbook, and their strength is that they've been together a long time."

The Tall Blacks were back pounding the court yesterday in a vigorous training session, with added emphasis on a defence which leaked badly on Wednesday.

Today's final hitout before the second test was expected to be heavily focused on shooting.

The Tall Blacks had no further injury concerns yesterday, but shooting guard Kirk Penney was still receiving treatment for a mild back strain suffered last week.

A fit and accurate Penney, with his shooting prowess, will be crucial for the Tall Blacks to threaten the Boomers as they attempt to win just their second series in 18 attempts dating back to 1971.

Fans voting on a Basketball New Zealand website poll ahead of the series did not appear too optimistic at their chances though.

Forty one per cent of respondents picked a 2-1 series win for Australia and 25 per cent thought they would win 3-0, while 29 per cent predicted a 2-1 victory for the Tall Blacks and the remaining five per cent have already been proved wrong after tipping New Zealand to triumph 3-0.

NZPA