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It think the Brit forgot that by definition, basketball is high-scoring because of the following factors:

1. The small size of the basketball court encourages scoring.
2. Current basketball rules--especially the banning of hand-checking in the NBA since 2004--has resulted in a lot of scoring because point guards and forwards don't worry so much about being physically beaten up going to the basket.
3. With the ban on hand-checking, NBA has become more and more like FIBA rules basketball played in most of the world, which emphasizes ball movement to get the best shot.

In soccer, the sheer size of the soccer pitch--just slightly larger than an NFL field--makes scoring quite difficult. That's why even at the highest professional levels like the Barclays Premier League in England, 1-0 and scoreless games are fairly common.

If the Brits want to watch a sport with way more scoring, there's always Rugby League/Union and cricket.

Part of the problem in basketball is that the rules have been changed to make scoring easier. The 24-second shot clock is a modern adaptation of the game. And strange as it may seem ... even as recently as the 1930s there was a jump ball at center court after every score. It wasn't uncommon for players to lead their team in scoring with 10 or 12 points in a game back in those days.

Having said that, I'm not sure why the issue of scoring in basketball is even an item of discussion in a BBC story like this. Scoring totals in the NBA are actually lower today than they were 20-30 years ago. Most of the single-game and season records for team scoring date back to the 1980s when the Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers used to consistently score 120+ points in a game.