Tall Blacks Look For Upset
Tagged in: National Teams, Tall Blacks
As a New Zealand Tall Blacks player, Dillon Boucher was on the wrong side of some lop-sided scores against Germany.
And he’s hoping a switch to the coaching ranks will bring a win on Thursday.
The Tall Blacks have never beaten Dirk Nowitzki and the Germans in four previous meetings, including three 20-plus point losses, but will be battling for that first win when they step on court on day three of the FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament (tip-off Thursday 4.30am NZ time) in Athens, Greece.
With wins over Cape Verde - New Zealand 77-50 on Monday and Germany 104-68 yesterday – both teams are already guaranteed places in the quarterfinals, with tomorrow’s game all about playoff positioning.
Boucher, who has switched from player to video coach after retiring internationally this season, admits he has “seen more of Germany than you’d care to know” in the build-up to their group B game.
“We’ve done a lot of video on them from their past tournament and broken down the tape and plays, and we just watched the first half of their game today against Cape Verde,” Boucher said.
“They’ve got obviously one weapon in Dirk Nowitzki and they’ve got a couple of seven-foot guys and their guards shoot the ball really well. They shot 67 percent from the field and 57 percent from the three-point line today.
“But they’re human like any other team we play and they do have some areas of weakness that we’ll be looking to exploit.
“We’re going to struggle to match-up with them height-wise and size-wise in the post. We rely on our team defence and that’s what we’re going to have to do against the Germans.”
Boucher, Tall Blacks captain Pero Cameron, stud shooting guard Kirk Penney and swingman Paora Winitana, were part of all four previous New Zealand-Germany encounters, all wins to the Europeans.
Germany won their 2002 tune-up in Germany 83-74, the closest the Tall Blacks have got. Since it has been all Dirk and Co.
At the 2002 World Championships in Indianapolis, Germany handled the Kiwis 84-64 in the second round and 117-94 in the third-fourth playoff, and were again big winners four years later at the 2006 World Championships in Japan, 80-56 in the group stage.
“They’ve been our bogey team and haven’t been close and feel like we haven’t played that well. So this a chance for redemption. If we can do a good job on Dirk, that will go a long way to being successful.”
Joining Dallas Mavericks NBA All-Star Nowitzki in the German team for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament has been Los Angeles Clippers centre Chris Kaman, who qualified for German citizenship through great grandparents.
While the German roster also includes Patrick Femerling, Stefan Hamann and American-born guard Demond Greene, their 2008 campaign has been hit by injury, with Ademola Okulaja, Jo Herber and Mithat Demirel unavailable.
Penney, the Tall Blacks leading scorer, has familiarity with much of the German squad from his time with Alba Berlin in the German Bundesliga during the 2006-07 season.
A win over Germany would likely set up a quarterfinal against world number 18 Brazil, while a loss would likely deliver the sixth-ranked high-favoured hosts Greece.
But as Boucher explains, neither opponent would be an easy match-up for New Zealand, with Greece highly-favoured to qualify for the Olympics and Brazil, despite missing their three NBA players Leandro Barbosa, Anderson Verajao and Nene, having played well in build-up games and defeating Lebanon by 40 points yesterday.
“We’re all about keeping our momentum going and we want to get this win simply for that momentum and for the guys’ confidence.
“We’re not worried about who we play, Greece and Brazil play after us so we won’t find out until after we play.”
