Hoops

Rio SF: Boomers vs Serbia

And if we hadn't played so poorly today we could have won. That wasn't an unrealistic expectation.

I like our chances of beating the US better than our chances of beating Spain; bronze is actually the hardest medal to win.

The sense of disappointment and let down has been exaggerated because of the unfortunate 'we are here to win gold' mantra and hyperbole that's been propagated around this team over the past week.

We were always going to have to (and still do) beat a top 4 team in a game that counts to win a medal.

I wouldn't say that. Second-biggest semi final loss ever, equal-best pool result.

If they get beat by more than ten tomorrow we can officially shelve the 'best Boomers team ever' talk.

"This is a rubbish argument. This team isn't ranked 11th, the teams Australia has fielded in previous tournaments are collectively ranked 11th."

Great point. 16 years of being completely average and unremarkable has led to our ranking at 11. It certainly isn't this particular team or they would be ranked 4th or thereabouts.

"Yep, any gains with the general public were more than given back today.

Playing for gold or playing against the US was a chance to bring them back, but I think only the basketball fans are going to watch a bronze-medal game against Spain."

I don't know if that is entirely true. I am sure there are many people who caught the good games who remain reasonably impressed by the Boomers. As for the Bronze game, if they happen to win the game there will be some news clips and people will be somewhat receptive to it I am sure.

As for being the darlings of sport, I find it amazing that the soccerroos almost beat good teams and they are wonderful, but the Boomers routinely beat good teams and slip up once to a good team in a short tournament and suddenly they're a national shame of some sort. To be fair this has been an excellent campaign and if the Boomers bounce back (somehow) tomorrow, it will finish of being our most successful campaign ever by a fair margin.

It´s a real shame how quickly things can come tumbling down. I read in a thread earlier how great the Boomers performance could be for the NBL. The great early wins, the near upset of the USA, the smashing of Lithuania, it created such a vibe that this semi final v Serbia would have had more borderline/non-basketball fans tuning in than ever.... then we dished up that. Sadly, very sadly, not a great promotion of what the Australian game has to offer in front of such a big audience.

We are the 11th ranked nation who over achieved to even get to the last 4.

I have 3 words for you "One Bad Game"

Apart from today this is our best performance ever. It is just a massive kick in the guts to have played this way in the semi final with the opportunity it provided.

My emotions are now all over the shop, my confidence has been shattered and all I can say is " I picked a very bad week to give up alcohol!!"

We are the 11th ranked nation who over achieved to even get to the last 4.
End of story!

Serbia scouted very, very well and their defense reflected it. Marking Bogut above the 3pt line to stop ball movement? Putting taller guards on Patty to force him to constantly move and never get open? To force the ball to the hands of Broekhoff and Ingles? Serbia planned for the drive/motion game of Australia and succeeded. For Australia to not shoot a foul shot in the first half, to see only one Mills cut for layup in the first.. That was something.

This was a game of missed shots though - there was too many open jumpers missed by Australia. Many of the early 1Q shots were good looks. Boomers missed Bairstow when Bogut looked ineffective.

All that being said - if you told many Boomers fans at the start of the tournament they would win bronze, what would they say to that? All is not exactly lost yet. Silver, bronze, either way its a medal that will be long celebrated in Australian basketball history.. I don't think we can count them out yet, especially with the Spanish guards.

Especially when as a Tall Blacks fan, we looked decent in our 2002 World Champs semifinal vs Yugoslavia..

Meanwhile, Damian Martin absolutely hounded Kalneitus.

It is a little bit unfair to be finding all these faults with players after one poor game when they've been borderline brilliant for the other 6.

Meanwhile they got to the semi's without Newley!!! Brilliant logic

Although Patty shot poorly we really needed someone else to step up in his absence. Sadly Jingles, Delly and Broekhoff all stunk it up from 3, and we werent going to beat Serbia in the paint.I dont know what happened to Broekhoff, he shoots 40%+ at club level but looks very average for the Boomers.

Newley should have been selected. Lisch is very average player, why does it take a tournament like the Olympics to expose his lack of ability at international level. NBL journeyman arent good enough. He looked overawed anyway, almost like he felt he had imposter syndrome and didnt belong. Neither he or Martyn shouldve played big minutes in the semi, neither is up to standard, meanwhile a gun like Newley sits at home.

Euro teams have had similar capitulations in similar events. It would be nice to have more elite level competition but I don't chalk that up as the reason we lost today.

We will have more competition due to moving into FIBA Asia, but the problem is those tournaments will be played during the NBA season, so we wont have our best players. And also, it's Asia. I mean, we're basically just adding China and Philippines to the mix of teams we should beat.

Sorry for these repeat posts. Glitch with my mobile

It is moments like this that begs the question: Does the geographical isolation of Australia and New Zealand from Europe deny both national teams the opportunity to ever be "powerhouses" in international ball at the highest level.

Talent wise the two Oceania national teams can be on par with the European teams, but does the lack of "pressure cooker" games on a more regular basis against the best Euro teams leave both programs under done when everything is on the line and individual talent isn't enough?

@Very Old,

Nice story, yes it is a different world over there isn't it?

We are so far removed from the rest of the world in many areas, however as a Nation we and the Serbs punch above our weight IMHO, especially when it comes to sport.

By the way, 'Chess' is actually number one, whether that is recognised as a sport to a game is also debatable...

:)

Always an excuse

"Where is 'Me'"

Well, I am here.

I think it's important that we don't throw the baby out with the bath water on this one. As has been said, every team has a terrible game and it just so happened to be at the worst possible time.

Spain might be a great team but their overall results have been pretty similar to ours if you compare group play, what they did with France, etc. The key is whether or not the Boomers can fight back from this kind of adversity, put their game faces on and actually scrap their way to a win. It is possible, but not entirely likely.

Either way, it is unfair to judge their entire Olympic performance on this one game. Serbia did a great job exposing Australia's weaknesses and hopefully they find ways to execute solutions for the game against Spain. All is not lost - yet.

Against Spain we will need to rotate bodies earlier than we did in this game and keep up the intensity. I am worried that Bogut might not be in great shape at this point but I still give us a chance at bronze at this stage.

No post game, too many forced shots which were not needed, too many turnovers, poor screen/roll defense.

Totally out scouted !!

BEAR

In Serbia Basketball IS their national game. Its bigger than the all blacks in NZ.

The national coaching director of the old Serbia/Montenegro was once asked by an Australian coach "How do you ensure you don't lose junior players to other sports ?" and the poor bloke literally did not understand the question ( his English was absolutely perfect BTW).

The concept of any Serbian not wanting to play basketball for their country just did not compute.

that's still no justification for losing or not having another crack.

Lets hope the next game is more of a contest.

That was an absolutely shocking miserable performances from the Boomers. We didnt even play that we just had the shakes when shooting.

Mills 1/9 from 3
Ingles 1/4
Delly 0/2
Broekhoff 1/6

4/31 (12.9%)

We cant blame this sad performance solely on Serbias defence, we had plenty of looks but just stunk it up from 3

We simply choked.

I take full responsibility for this. I just to go back over the last 24 hours of my life to see where I jinxed us!

At worst we will equal our best performance (4th) or still get our first ever medal

Comprehensively outplayed and outcoached in every department unfortunately.

Serbia looked like they came to win s medal; we looked like we turned up to collect one.

I don't think we saw a lot of the real Serbs in the pool game - did Teodosic even start ?

Defensively they took us out of everything we do and we had nothing up our sleeve.

Execution under pressure. I fear we might lack in this dept but hopefully we can do enough v Spain.

http://youtu.be/YPcLaO4ey4g

Summed it up pretty well, LV. I've found myself so used to our three pointers dropping I was shocked when they weren't today - just when we needed them, no less.

Bogut was clearly hampered by his knee as well, which hurt our ability to guard the pick and roll. Throw in an elite game from Teodosic and it was always going to be a tough ask even if things went our way.

A bitterly disappointing result, but this happens in sport.

If we can bring a competitive performance against Spain I'll still be very pleased and very proud of our team.

^This. Spain held the USA to 82 points today. That screams defence. I think we are medal-less once again. I hope I'm proved VERY wrong.

Well that was shit. Pretty much got every weakness of ours exposed and didn't have anything to counter with. Apparently the key to completely shutting us down is just playing proper D (and letting Ingles shoot). Go figure...

Good to see the coaching staff were prepared for a team not willing to let us do everything we wanted.

We'll be fine against Spain though. It's not like they have an elite on-ball defender at the point to stop Delly or bigs who can score from all over the court or wings who can actually contribute. Right?

Also, if Kevin Lisch could show us this supposed international level offensive game that he possesses, that would be nice.

Bronze is looking like it'll take a miracle.

European teams play tournaments that mean something to qualify to the Olympics and World Cup and play multiple teams, compare this to the system Australia use where we play New Zealand twice and half the time these games are meaningless as there are 2 slots available to Oceania. Well this changes next year where we have to qualify through Asia, this isn't as tough as Europe but it's better than the current set up.

- Serbia scouted Boomers really well, played strong D and executed their plan.

- Boomers could not buy a basket. It happens.


In terms of line up balance, our one major weakness was obvious today. Aussies lack a go to scorer other than Mills. It was always the one weakness in our line up but our deft passing, brilliant cutting and accurate jump shooting masked the problem until today. Serbia turned up the heat, shut down our offense, nothing was working and we didn't have anyone who could individually break the deadlock.

Ideally we'd have a wing player in the Ginobili type mold. Creative, with genuine flair and tough to lock down one on one. Or even a pure scorer like a Goulding but with a bit more consistency. Ingles is solid all round but bit unexplosive these days, and Broekhoff is a sniper. We need one on one go to scorer or creator with flair.

Still, I guess you don't have what you don't have.

Boomers need to regroup, relax, and give Spain a red hot crack. Spain has more weapons than Serbia but we need to do a Serbia on them- hard nosed D, push them out of their comfort zone.

It's amazing how one result can sap your confidence. After hearing the players talk after the Litho game, I got caught up in their confidence when beforehand, I still had some small doubts thanks to previous campaigns. Then this happens, and I lose my sh*t. Can we even beat Spain?

C'mon all you positive people, help me out here, give me some hope again!

MEs mental breakdown confirmed as biggest ever in latest Guinness World Record book.

the game was basically over after only 2 quarters

Brilliant game by Serbia. We got beaten by our poor execution in the first half. Spain will be tough but I'm certainly believing in the guys to get that medal. They have had a great Olympic campaign (apart from today) and deserve our faith.
Rest up, regroup and still believe.

Where is "ME"

A change of personnel ~ new players and coach, is needed after this Olympics.

Very very disappointing from the team. Says something when both our womens and mens lost to Serbia!

The moment we were 8 points behind in the 1st Qtr was end game for us, they never looked like they were going to win.

Serbia defence way too good.

Our shooting was awful.

Turnovers way too many. The smooth passing was not there today.

Need to regroup for the Bronze medal game, still think we can do it.

chalk that one up to a poor performance. in an 8 game competition, you're always going to have at least one 'off' game. it's just a shame ours happened in the semi finals.

Related, but I think they beat and lose to each other so frequently in different competitions in Europe that the loses don't have the same impact as they do on us.

No question. These European national teams go to war on a pretty regular basis.

It is moments like this that begs the question: Does the geographical isolation of Australia and New Zealand from Europe deny both national teams the opportunity to ever be "powerhouses" in international ball at the highest level.

Talent wise the two Oceania national teams can be on par with the European teams, but does the lack of "pressure cooker" games on a more regular basis against the best Euro teams leave both programs under done when everything is on the line and individual talent isn't enough?

Serbia had some talent tonight. Same can't be said for us

the game was basically over after only 2 quarters, terrible terrible terrible performance by the boomers

Some people are forgetting, or perhaps unaware how good at basketball a nation such as Serbia is. They are extremely good at sport, especially the European and world sports like soccer, basketball, volleyball and many others.

I am as shattered as any Aussie out there, but never doubt how good the team we just played in on the international stage, not for one minute.

Basketball is almost their national game, it isn't ours, we will have to wait for cricket to become an Olympic sport for that to become reality...

#goforbronze

Credit to Bairstow though: he had the best +/- on the team tonight.

I don't think we can beat Spain but if nothing else we still do have an opportunity to finish the tournament well.

Two points to make from this one - we should have picked Brad Newley and Serbia obviously just had more individual talent than us. ;-)

Bring on Spain, we'll really see what this Boomers team is made of now.

Positives?

47 in the second half.

Motum played hard at the end.

Most of the finals have been blowouts.

Delly finally comes crashing back to earth. Much like Linsanity, it was never gonna last

The way we are playing, a major US college team would have beaten the boomers tonight.

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