Former NBL stars Boomers' game-breakers

Former Boomer Ryan Broekhoff has praised the impact of forward pair Xavier Cooks and Jack White in Australia’s first-up victory over Finland at the World Cup.

Cooks and White both started the game from the bench and were rotated through both the power forward and centre positions – and both played a key role in slowing down Finnish star Lauri Markkanen on the offensive end.

Reigning NBL MVP Cooks added nine points and two rebounds – both offensive – and a pair of steals in the victory, while former Melbourne forward White finished the game with seven points and a pair of rebounds.

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“They were both very impressive,” Broekhoff said on NBL Today: World Cup Edition.

“Their energy and effort on Markannen, making things tough – they just accepted the role.

“These are guys that are playing over in the NBA and Jack has come off being part of that championship team with Denver. For them to come in and accept a role like that, to come in and play spot minutes, bring energy and offensive rebounds, finish around the rim…”

“Because there’s no Jock Landale, if we win a gold medal it’s going to be off the back of a small ball lineup,” co-host and former Melbourne guard Peter Hooley added.

“We are going to come up against some bigger teams, with some more dominant forces inside.”

Despite a sluggish start, Australia began to turn the defensive screws on Finland during the second quarter, and once the Boomers gained the ascendency in the clash they never looked back.

Patty Mills and Josh Giddey both starred in the victory, but the most telling factor was all 12 of Australia’s players hit the court during the game.

Starting centre Duop Reath looked effective in his 20 minutes on the court, but Broekhoff and Hooley were surprised the former Illawarra Hawk didn’t see more of the floor to counteract Markkanen.

“I am a little shocked Duop Reath played just under 20 minutes – I thought he looked really good and the Boomers looked really good when he was out there,” Hooley said.

“The first 12-15 minutes were very shaky. The defence didn’t have the bite we expected, Finland came out and really executed well and found easy shots, and on offence we just turned the ball over which we’ve had problems with,” Broekhoff said.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The sky is the limit for Josh Giddey, who casually flirted with a triple-double on World Cup debut ?<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FIBAWC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FIBAWC</a> x <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WinForAustralia?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WinForAustralia</a> ?? <a href="https://t.co/B9AiExq5DE">pic.twitter.com/B9AiExq5DE</a></p>&mdash; FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023 ? (@FIBAWC) <a href="https://twitter.com/FIBAWC/status/1695215729728262385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

“From that mid-way point in the second quarter they figured it out, they took control of the ball, found easy baskets, Patty [Mills] started to get going, it looked a lot better.

“Just changing bodies, sending doubles and mixing things up kept them off balance and helped the Aussies find their own rhythm and that small ball lineup with the pressure, deflections and turnovers really kick-started their offence.

“They said ‘enough is enough, it’s time to put our foot down and see if Finland can go with us’, and they just couldn’t.”

Australia will play its second group game of the tournament on Sunday when it takes on Germany.

The Germans defeated Japan 81-63 in their opening game of the tournament, with NBA pair Mo Wagner and Dennis Schroder leading the way.

That game will be shown live on ESPN at 6:30pm AEST on Sunday evening.