I agree with LC. Boomers to win in an upset with Maric having a big game.

Boomers by 9.

Maric and Andersen top scorers.

Newley to have a stand out game defensively.

The more I think about it, Maric would want to make a statement and play well given all the innuendo about him not wanting to play for Australia andf given the fact it is against the Serbs. As a result he could well prove the difference for us in this game.

innuendo?

Its never good to call a boomers game before it happens, becuae ya just never ever knmow.. Id like to think tyhe boomers take this one, if they do.. i think we are looking towards one of our most succesful WC's ever. Given a favourable crossover, tjhis could set us up for top 16, top 8 and beyond.

Serbia is one of the best teams on the Championship and we can't beat them. They konw Maric and his play (right pivot)so he will not be big dangerous for them. Serbia has better guards and also young very good forwards(Keselj, Bjelica).
There is one intersting thing..... Spain and Serbia do the calclulations and try to avoid each other in the early stage of the Chamiponship.....

I want to share the optimism........but I don't think they will win this game, I think the Serbians will win by 11 to 15 points.

However this is definately one of those times that I will be most happy to be proven so wrong.

Regardless of the result, given the recent games against France, Brazil, Germany and Slovenia, I think the Boomers are setting up a great platform for London in 2012.

For the time being I'm going to hope for the best and enjoy every win.

i don't know about you lot....... but i just can't stop thinking about bogut,jawai and bruton for maric,baynes and martin.

Bruton and Bogut in yes but wouldnt be taking Maric out at all ... he has been one of our better players.

I think he has a better all round game than jawai and a lot more fitness

This is a fascinating match up on paper. Maric v Krstic will be very interesting. Lets see how Maric goes against a N.B.A center afer his poor performance against Scola. If we can win this match up and light it up beyond the arc, who knows...

Aust win by 2

yeah sorry anon,markovic instead of martin is right.

wayne- not sure about maric's one dimensional play.
i think tonight will tell what he is mentally and skillfully made of.

What time is this game on? I though it was 11.30pm AEST....

I'm on FIBATV but nothing seems to be showing.

It will be interesting to see Krstic v Anderson.....or Maric v Perovic.....to see who is better center....
Also will be interesting to see how will Mills play against Teodosic,Rasic or Tepic.

My bad.....sorry. I am in Vietnam and this time thing is screwing with me. It's only 10.45pm back home.

Goooood morning bball faaaaaaaaaannnn..







Nearly time now, come on lads..

Ah ha ha nice one DB5!! I like it.

Do you know how hard it is to find anywhere in Vietnam where they even have a sports channel. This place is crazy!

I am interested to hear from people why David B is getting no love. He played pretty well in Beijing....

P.S Is it live on fox back home?

anyone gettin this thru fiba tv io cant see any live games atm

Brad Newley Benched, Gibbo in to starting 5

Illicit - Yeah I got it on FIBA TV but the quality is crap!!

7-5 Serbia, Newley and Maric in for Anderson and Mills

the stream ive got is crap, has anyone got a decent one?

Ingles pinging away like he has green light, Yet to hit

12-7 Serbia

1/7 threes

Get the ball inside please

Worthington, Mills and Martin in
Nielson, Ingles and Gibson out

i love it when newley misses layups

i also love when maric doesnt get back on defense

no one can post a link?? Im missing chunks of 30secs at a time, its killing me

16-12 Serbia, not shooting very well and only down by 4. Got to like that as long as we starting knocking some

http://atdhe.net/index.html

Working great for me

Anyone got a live feed?

Yeah live on Fox.

I wish we missed that first shot of the game. Hit it (3) and all of a sudden, that is our offence! grrr..


Wortho played well for the 5 mins he was on. Probably only has 2 pts 1 reb, but 1 ast, 1 stl, a charge taken, and some elbows thrown.

i cant get this on Fiba tv, i demand a refund.

Agreed, Barlow is getting screwed. That foul called early on him, he didn't even have a hand on the bloke!!!

Serbia hot from outside, get them up very quick.

Thanks Speed44 - Seems to be working better than Fiba Tv.

crap

Boomers hanging tough - pretty even 1st half.

we got punked on that last play

speed44 your a legend, watchin it now

Im surprised were only down by 6, thoes guys r gettin open shots everywhere... we just havent been rotating to the 3 point shooters... plus our offence has been mostly unexistant. If we start getting it together, we can win, i think they need to keep Newley off the court! whoever wins, we have probably got 3rd sewed up.. or 2nd at best, so.. we Miss USA, and play completely winnable games vs Slovenia or Brazil.

I think they said in the pre game that both teams have missed the USA, maybe he meant the winner will miss them.

Slovenia is now complete and we now can't beat them.

Starters dor 2nd half should be

Gibson
Ingles
Barlow/ OR TRY Worthington
Nielson
Maric

When I say or try, worthington is a good tough defender, whether he play d on their 3 man, not sure, but O he can definitely play the 3

both, assu,in we win against Angola.. we will be 3rd, our win against Germany puts us above them. Germany is 4th having lost to us, and being likely to beat both Angola and Jordan will finnish 3/2 (or even if they dont BELOW US) unless... we lose both tonight, and to Angola.. which is the only possible chance of us losing third and going lower.

how long before that stream by speed 44 gets cut

Nah, should be good for the rest of the game, that site kills

Serbs shooting the shit out of it

Well that was a good start!

Flinders, Gibbo has been starting all tournament.

Anyway, we're pretty lucky to only be down 6. They keep finding holes in our D (nothing to be too ashamed of I guess, they run a really good offence) and we're cold from 3. Bit disappointing that we needed to go 1-8 from deep before we started working it around more, but oh well.

Wortho is playing great. We really need something out Ando and Ingles. Maric is just getting screwed by the refs (again), how they let so much go against him is anyones guess.

Still a real chance to win this, lets hope the lads come out hot.

Someone tell the Boomers the 2nd half has started!

Seriously could we rebound any worse? or maybe at all.

these 2nd chance Serbian points are my breaking my balls

no PG in the game....not sure what Browns trying to do but this line up sucks

wewre not out of tyhis, were still haunting them.. soon as we get our shit together... it could be good night serbia!

Considering we've been smashed on the boards on the defensive end, and they have been red hot from 3, we really aren't that far down.

box out!!!!

Serbs shooting the shit out of it

its ridiculously close considering how shit we have played... buck up boys and we can do this!

This has been Keystone Kops-level play by the Boomers...

11 off rebs to Serbia. Killing us!

would one of our guards get a rebound! ingles, newley, gibson, mills are all passengers on the glass! no effort to get to o-boards and just watching on D hoping one of our bigs who are battling with krstic down low will come up with it some how. Boards are there to be had then we need to get out and run in the fourth really put some pressure on their d trans, right now too many second chance points is killing us.

Australia is tentative, has pretty ordinary offensive sets, has had several inept turnovers, is just getting ripped on the offensive boards and yet we are still in striking distance...that's basketball.

Fingers crossed for another Balkaneseque brain explosion...

ingles quit whinging and just get a rebound, standing watching ain't gonna get it done champ.

gibbo might need to check his undies after tonight. struggling!

Fuck can we make a free throw

I just have to say....I'm getting the feeling this World Champs is going to be a case of what could have been....we are playing pretty ordinarily against Serbia and are almost beating them...maybe I am speaking too early I will go back and watch the end.

Wortho, unbelievable...


We need to box the hell out, definately still in it.

COME ON BOOMERS!

Could the commentator please stop calling us "Aussie"?!

Not "We" - just Newley...

In his defence he keyed this mini-rally... Frustrating as hell...

That Teodosic dude is an assassin.

we need to combine Mills scoring with Gibson organisation and defence. Mills has gone individual for two plays and then turned over the next pass

Browns lost me with his rotations

ingles is a liability defensively for us right now, get barlow back in!

mills out of control...should've pulled up and ran something there

fuck :(

anyone got the free throw stats?

Damn that was a frustrating loss - rebounding practice before the next game Coach and please sort out your rotations.

Mills looks like he's playing in the NBA SL or NBADL... And all that implies. If only CJ could have made it to Turkey...

That was just woeful in the end. I can't wait to see the box score in order to sort out who or what was to blame for this. It is so frustrating being a Boomer fan...really it is. We just have so much trouble beating these robotic European efficiency machines....god it annoys me. I truly think we are a more lucid, athletic and in someways skilled side, and yet we lose to their "colour by numbers" approach to basketball.

....oh and we lost because we can't rebound, we play one off offensively (yes you Mr Mills, and Mr Ingles), we were horrid with our free throws, and we can't create (or stop for that matter) second chance opportunities.


ARRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!

Mills, Gibson & Ingles were all horrible tonight. Selfish offensively and lost on D, even Gibson who is widely regarded as a good defender was poor. The serbian guards made our starting back court look very second rate. Newley and Barlow were good though. Our bigs got very little touches inside, our guards need to utilise them better to get themselves easy shots by playing inside out rather than jacking a whole lot of 3's. Our offence looks great when we push the ball with Newley and Mills on the break but we need a half court general to get us organised into some kind of offence on a consistent basis. Too many soft turnovers and lack of effort on the offensive glass really hurt us. Especially at crucial stages in the game.

Our starting backcourt if it stays that way really needs to take a long hard look at themselves tonight and turn things around soon. Because they were all horrible in what may be the turning point in our world championship campaign. Newley, Andersen and Neilsen really showed their big game european experience tonight.

Mills wants to play in Europe against gaurds like Teodosic ....20 cm taller !!!!!
I hope he saw where is his place.

I wake up to find the Boomers have lost to Serbia 79-93 - and again aother case of what could have been. Nonetheless the Serbs are a very strong team...

Brad Newley top-scored with 13 points,Patrick Mills added 12 points (6 assists), Matt Nielsen and Aleks Maric each had 10.

BA Recap: http://linky.com.au/6xe9o

As expected the tall Serbian guards proved a handful, and in particular Teodosic.

And yes, we now must beat Angola to finish in 3rd spot.

Things I took from the game that Australia needs to do

1. Box Out - for the love of god - Box Out
2. Learn to shoot Free Throws
3. Stop shooting 3's - penetrate
4. Run the press more
5. Play Worthington more
6. Shorten the bench - Brown had play 9 guys after 8 minutes - what the hell? Why would you rotate like that - let them play some minutes together.
7. If teams press - Mills has to be on the floor

I don't get the love affair with Gibson - it might be the thing that I have never seen him play well (i have seen him maybe 10 times - NBL and for Australia) - he seems to do a few things well but nothing great. I must be missing something.

Last night Maric sung Serbian national anthem.
What do you think about that?
Is it OK to force somebody to play for us?

Teodosic was money last night with some huge plays. Really, the difference in the Argentina and Serbia games have been the play of their marquee player, Scola and Teodosic respectively. They both delivered exactly when they were needed.

Although Maric is All-Euroleague and Andersen and Mills are NBA, IMO we don't have anyone at the same level as those two, someone who you can rely on in crunch time.

Sorry, by those two, I mean Teodosic and Scola.

Little bit of reality guys, the Boomers just ran a very good and pretty much full strength Serbia close without Bogut and with Maric nowhere near the level needed at the moment.

Serbia hit big shots but our guys kept coming and coming. They didnt go within their shells when things went wrong they kept attacking and didnt get stuck in an arm wrestle.

While there are areas to fix, all teams make mistakes at this high level - it's f#cking tough! - and the effort should be recognised as a good one. The final margin is not reflective of how competitive the Boomers were.

The other thing to remember is that we have a rookie head coach. He is learning just as young guys on our team are this tournament.

This might be frustrating, but that is simply where it is at right now.

I agree Paul that the effort is there, there hasn't been an Australian team around that hasn't had that in buckets. What is frustrating is the lame turnovers (Mills simply dribbled the ball off his foot twice, Maric lazily passed the ball to a Serbian player on our 3 point line), the nonexistent blocking out, the poor free throw shooting, and lack of second opportunities after a missed shot. I believe, talent wise, player for player Australia is superior to Serbia (I know that comment is going to ruffle some feathers) but we don't play to our strengths, Mills is a little loose with TO's and, since Beijing, has bought into the idea that he is a speed Demon scoring machine (his last season at St Mary's bore this out) why is he the point guard running the show...why? Because who has the cohones on the the coaching staff to sit Mills or move hime to shooting guard (or god forbid use him off the bench as a lightning bug). And it is not just Mills who is either miscast or playing contrary to their strengths, I would say Newley is suffering from this, as is Andersen to a certain extent.

So I guess what I'm saying is I think based on their skills, their talent, I believe they are underachieving...which is never a great thing.

I agree Paul that the effort is there, there hasn't been an Australian team around that hasn't had that in buckets. What is frustrating is the lame turnovers (Mills simply dribbled the ball off his foot twice, Maric lazily passed the ball to a Serbian player on our 3 point line), the nonexistent blocking out, the poor free throw shooting, and lack of second opportunities after a missed shot. I believe, talent wise, player for player Australia is superior to Serbia (I know that comment is going to ruffle some feathers) but we don't play to our strengths, Mills is a little loose with TO's and, since Beijing, has bought into the idea that he is a speed Demon scoring machine (his last season at St Mary's bore this out) why is he the point guard running the show...why? Because who has the cohones on the the coaching staff to sit Mills or move hime to shooting guard (or god forbid use him off the bench as a lightning bug). And it is not just Mills who is either miscast or playing contrary to their strengths, I would say Newley is suffering from this, as is Andersen to a certain extent.

So I guess what I'm saying is I think based on their skills, their talent, I believe they are underachieving...which is never a great thing.

Without Bogut we do not have as much talent as Serbia.

Every team in this tournament is making mistakes etc, it is such a high level that things never go to plan. People tend to only see their own teams failings though.

A great example of that is that we had less turnovers and shot a better percentage than Serbia last night, yet people complain about those two areas. Yes there were some poor turnovers, but Serbia had a couple of them too.

We are not underachieving, we have lost to Argentina and the Euro runners up in tight games without our best player and our point guard.

We are in the second round and if we win our Eight Final against Slovenia most likely then we will have made top 8, which is an awesome achievement, especially with a rookie coach.

You make a very good point Paul, I saw a Serbian player fire a no-look pass out of bounds last night, that had an Australian done it I would have been beying for his removal from the court.

Not to mention the fans of Spain who have seen their defending champions lose two games to, perhaps, lesser teams.

I think we have to be honest with ourself and admit that we are not so strong how we want to be. We played without Bogut, CJ but do not forget that Argentina and Serbia also played without their best players (Ginnobilii, Stojakovic,Radmanovic,Pavlovic, Milicic, Raduljica).After Angola I hope we will be lucky and that Slovenia will play bad. Even this Slovenia (SL without Lorbek, Vujacic, Smodis, Preledzic, Nestorovic) we can't beat.

By my opinion to be in 16 best isn't underachievment.