FIBA World Cup preview: Can the Boomers open their account against Lauri Markkanen's Finland?

We’re rapidly approaching tipoff for the 2023 FIBA World Cup and Australia are hoping to start the tournament with a boom.

It has been just over two years since the Boomers won their first ever Olympic medal with arguably their strongest side ever fielded. If you are like me, you have been waiting eagerly for this team to return to the court to show the world what our small sporting nation can offer.

During the 2020 (2021) Olympics the Boomers opted for young talent in the likes of Dante Exum, Joshua Green, Jock Landale and Matisse Thybulle. The notable omission was Josh Giddey, and despite being only 18 years old at the time, his form the past two years shows us that this might have been a mistake.

Duop Reath. (Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images)

With that being said, this time around Giddey would have been one of the first names Brian Goorjian included in the squad and it appears to already be paying dividends with some classy playmaking showcased in the recent ‘Boomers vs The World’ warmup games.

As in Tokyo, the Australians will field a relatively young and developing roster but this time the team contains nine NBA players, the most we have had in the history of our program. The squad is led by co-captains Joe Ingles, 35, and Patty Mills, 35, who for many years now have been laying the foundation for what shapes to be the Boomers most successful tournament to date.

The Boomers’ road to the World Cup

The Australians have held a Cairns training camp and five warm-up games in Melbourne leading into their World Cup opener. At times they have looked superb, being guided around by point guard Giddey four wins in five games, but were reminded by an unexpected loss to Brazil of the consistency required to have success on the world stage.

A real positive take away for Goorjian from this campaign is the arrival of Duop Reath. The centre has exceeded the coach’s expectations with some significant performances, most notably with 26 points in the opening game against Venezuela.

The garnish on these performances was a posterising dunk on three-time NBA defensive player of the year Rudy Gobert in the game against France. The combination between Reath and Giddey should prove to be quite the asset for Australia and will help to fill the void created by the injury to Jock Landale. It is expected that Reath will slot into the starting five position.

Landale’s injury is a significant blow to the Australian team and now more than ever their co-captains Ingles and Mills will need to lead by example with their world class shooting. They both take their game to the next level when putting on the green and gold, with Ingles averaging 40.5% from three and Mills 23.3 pts per game in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Finland’s road to the World Cup

The Susijengi (The Wolf Gang) are heading into their opening match of the tournament with only four exhibition games under their belt against mid-tier European opposition. Their campaign began with wins over Lithuania and Estonia, followed by losses to Lithuania and Latvia. This is only the second appearance at the FIBA World Cup for Finland and they are hoping to improve on their sole win in the 2014 edition.

Lauri Markkanen. (Photo by Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

The Finns bring quite a young roster to the tournament but they have proven that they can deliver with a trip to the quarter-finals in EuroBasket 2022. This young line-up is headlined by 26 year old Lauri Markkanen, who had a stellar season with the Utah Jazz where he was awarded the NBA 2022-23 Most Improved Player award.

Lauri only featured in three out of the four warm-up games for the Finns but he was a dominant presence with 32, 29 and 24 points respectively. Their blowout loss to Latvia by 37 points in which he did not play shows the influence he has on the court for the national team.

The Susijengi will be heavily relying on Markkanen to be on his game and with Australia’s lack of size he is undoubtedly the player to watch. I am expecting Markkanen to have a major impact on this game but it won’t be sufficient to overcome the talented Boomers’ NBA-laden roster.

Potential Australia starting five
PG – Josh Giddey
SG – Patty Mills
SF – Joe Ingles
PF – Matisse Thybulle
C – Duop Reath

Potential Finland starting five
PG – Edon Maxhuni
SG – Sasu Salin
SF – Olivier Nkamhoua
PF –Mikael Jantunen
C – Lauri Markkanen

Start time
25th August – Okinawa, Japan 5:00pm (GMT+9) (6:00pm AEST)

How to watch
ESPN & Kayo