Australia VS New Zealand Preview: Favored Teams Meet in the Final, Australia Aiming for Perfect Championship Win

At 30 minutes past midnight on September 10, the U18 Asian Youth Championship final will officially kick off with Australia facing New Zealand. Both teams have maintained a perfect record up to this point, and these two were also considered favorites to win the title before the tournament. They have successfully met in the final, with Australia demonstrating absolute dominance. Can New Zealand create a miracle?

Australia has achieved five consecutive victories, averaging a margin of victory of 51.6 points per game. This includes matches against stronger Asian teams like Japan and Jordan, whom they defeated by 48 and 52 points respectively. With their strategy of rotating multiple players, no core rotation player of Australia has been overused yet. Taking the last match against Jordan as an example, a large number of pressing defenses and counterattacks in the first half easily created a 20-point lead. In the second half, under a strategy of training players, Australia easily beat Jordan 94-42 to advance to the final.

In this match against another group’s team, New Zealand, in terms of lineup configuration, Australia still holds a significant advantage. If they can maintain a strong defensive intensity, they can balance shooting and transition offense, possibly maintaining the same strategy in the first half and ending the game’s suspense through a lot of pressing defense in the first half.

Although New Zealand has also achieved five consecutive victories, due to the absence of several key players with absolute talent, they still show advantages when playing against Asian teams. In matches against China and Iran, their physical advantages often play a crucial role in key moments. They advanced to the final with a 15-point victory over a weakened Chinese men’s basketball team in the semi-finals.

The difficulty for New Zealand to aim for the championship is relatively high, unless they can maintain the absolute rebounding advantage they had in the last match against the Chinese men’s basketball team and score a lot from second-chance opportunities. Otherwise, it’s unlikely that Carter and Isaac can fully match Australia’s defense on both ends of the court based on their performance in the past five games.

Worth noting is that in the U18 Asian Youth Championship, on August 11, 2018, there was a direct matchup between the two, which Australia won 72-63 against New Zealand.

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