Landale-less Boomers survive scare in final World Cup warm-up

Without any broadcast or streaming coverage into Australia and with no advanced statistics immediately available, some Boomers’ fans were left frustrated at being unable to watch the contest, which was held at Tomigusuku City Gym in Okinawa, Japan.

The biggest positive out of the game was the return of shooting star Chris Goulding for his first meaningful competitive minutes in more than three weeks.

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Goulding did not play in a scrimmage against University of Houston in Cairns and then hurt his knee early in the Boomers’ Melbourne clash with Venezuela last Monday.

But Code Sports has been told the 34-year-old Melbourne United marksman has come through unscathed after draining a trio of three pointers on his way to 13 points.

Only Nick Kay with 14 points scored more.

Coach Brian Goorjian had his squad on high rotation after halftime and was happy with the spread of scorers – all 11 who took the court made at least one bucket and seven players had 9 points or more.

The regular substitutions did allow Georgia to cut a 19-point halftime lead back to just three with two minutes to go in the game.

But three Kay buckets and a clutch triple from Matisse Thybulle allowed the Boomers to play the free throw game – iceman Dante Exum calmly potted four in a row from the charity stripe to ensure an 86-81 result and a 4-1 exhibition record heading into the tournament.

Goorjian was said to be pleased with good defence and decision-making in critical moments down the stretch from the Boomers. The tight finish was welcomed as it challenged the group to find ways to win in clutch moments.

It doesn’t take a genius to gather from the basic box score, seen by Code Sports, the tall timber gave the Jock Landale-less Boomers issues.

Orlando Magic’s 211cm, 113kg monster Goga Bitadze paced all scorers with 22, while 206cm, 110kg former Brooklyn Net Tornike Shengelia had 18 and 208cm 110kg San Antonio Spur Sandro Mamukelashvili added 8.

But the smaller, athletic, blitzing, hardworking Boomers have now twice had the answers against bigger teams in Japan and, when the serious stuff begins Friday, will be confident they can ride their makeshift ‘Duop or small ball’ game plan all the way.

Dallas Maverick Josh Green, who limped from the floor during Sunday’s win over France in Tokyo, is understood to be fit to play, but sat out against Georgia to give his sore ankle extra rest ahead of Friday’s tournament-opener against Finland.

Watch that game on Kayo or ESPN at 6pm AEST.

Basketball journalist

Michael Randall is a basketball reporter for the Herald Sun and CODE Sports, covering the NBL, WNBL, NBA and Australian senior and junior international and representative teams…. Read more

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