AUCKLAND (FIBA U19 World Championship) – Howard Thompkins was a dominant figure with 22 points in the USA’s 16-point victory over Greece on day 4 of the FIBA U19 World Championship in Auckland, New Zealand. He spoke to Paulo Kennedy from www.fiba.com about his approach to the game, and his team’s upcoming match-up with Mike Rosario and Puerto Rico.

The Greek team is known for liking to play physical, but it was as if you really enjoyed taking it right back at them.

I decided today that I was going to be very, very aggressive. I heard that Greece like to bump and bang, I decided I was going to be the guy to initiate it first.

You got off to a quick start personally, does that help the rest of your game when you get going early?

Yeah definitely, I start playing better in all the other aspects of my game. I hedge on defence better, I talk better, my offence seems to be the way I get started into the game.

Did coach Dixon emphasise that before the game, getting the ball inside to you?

He wants our offence to start inside-out anyway, but we just have such great shooters it doesn’t seem like that sometimes. But coach Dixon, he always emphasis for us to play hard on the inside, going inside-out, and we get the job done.

The Greeks hit some very tough shots in the first half, were you a little worried at half time?

No, because I figured that our defence would pick up. Considering that they had hit those shots and we would notice it, and we would clamp down on defence a little bit harder and we did. Those shots just didn’t seem to fall for them this (second) half.

Teams seem to struggle against your defence as the games wear on into the second half, do you feel like you have a fitness edge over other teams?

I’ll be honest with you, coach Dixon and everyone they ran us into the floor in training (before the tournament), so we are definitely ready for that second half of defence. And that was his most important objective to us, our second half of defence.

He is not so much worried about our offence because we have a lot of dynamic scorers, so he just banged in that second half of defence.

You may still face Greece in the tournament, what were the strengths of their game?

Greece, they move the ball well, they play as a team. It seems like they use ball screens a lot, and they know how to penetrate and dish and they know how to create. They’re a good team and it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw them again.

Rosario scored 54 points today, you know him from him playing in the States. You next play Puerto Rico, that should be a great game with a lot of emotion between the two teams.

Yeah definitely. A bunch of our guys and a couple of their guys are close knit, so we enjoy playing against each other and we’ll put on a show for everyone.

Paulo Kennedy
FIBA