MASSIVE game for #AussieHoops vs Serbia this morning.

I am confident that the Boomers can do it but very, very nervous.

My thoughts exactly.
People saying "oh we beat them by 15 so this shouldn't be a problem" didn't see game 1. This team can play.
But we can also do this.
Thus: nervous af atm.

I hope Gaze can keep it together and not get ejected by an over zealous Brazilian security mob!

Here we go.

Stay out of foul trouble, Boomers.

Nervous start.

Horrible start. Haven't even looked like scoring.

Feeling sick.

Perfect start by the Serbs.

Our guys are shell shocked!

Mills fires up and nearly four minutes, but finally a foul is called.

Ver physical and aggressive game, as expected.

Great D Serbs. Aussies challenged early for first time! Game on

"Oh please" haha Gazey

It's like we've saved up every bad piece of play for the tournament and decided to use it all in the first 5 minutes.

Not one outside shot, other than that three by Mill has dropped, yet!

Not one shot at all. Inside or out.

We're kind of lucky that this hole isn't even deeper the way our offence is malfuncitoning

We really just need to get to the foul line. Get the scoreboard ticking a bit.

2/15 from the field, and 5 turnovers. Yikes.

5-16 at quarter time. wow.

who is this team and what happened to the Boomers?

Forget that first quarter, reminds me of the Opals at the moment, need to regroup and get back to our game.

At least Serbia have not blown us away with a 30 point quarter, still plenty of time...

Very nervy start. Lots of shots hitting the front of the rim or missing badly.

Serbia applying some decent pressure, and have done a pretty good job of covering Patty.

I like that Ingles was taking them on and drawing some fouls.

Come on boys!

Positives: no PFs to any Boomers starter

#ClutchingAtStraws

If we keep going this way we will be watching this on 7 mate in the second half.

Attaboy Ryan

Doesn't take much to change the mood around.
Game on.

Bogut!!!!

Yeah Bogey!

Much better start to the 2nd quarter.

Serbs locked in. This is gonna take an effort to get back in front and get some momentum. Broekhoff is a good candidate to break this deadlock

Teodosic certainly looks up for it.

Ughh ... fumbles like that are morale killers ...

Serbia will foul all game, if officials let them play super physical without calling fouls they play well and can get up, but we just have to work through it an play smart and strong.

Problem is when the Serbs are in front their style of game, making it an arm wrestle, comes into its own.

We have to be smart!

Even the way we're playing, we've had enough open looks that we should have scored as much as they have. We just can't make a shot today.

Like to see us trim this down to 6 by the half.

Were the Boomers out partying last night or something? Kind of got my hopes all up

HIT A FUCKING SHOT!

How the hell did Ingles get an NBA contract?

What a sad sad performance

Live by the 3, die by the 3....

WTF was that, Patty?

Well, 4th is pretty good I guess?

Can not throw it in the ocean.

Picking up the ball outside the 3 point line, and nobody is moving to receive the pass.

Movement has been our MO all tournament... Even if we lose this we need to get back to doing what got us here.

Patty in chucking mode

Well it's all going horribly pear shaped

Serbia has done a lot of scouting! Strong D. But apart from that, they've out hustled the Boomers which is unacceptable. And Boomers have missed shots they've been hitting all tourny. Games like this do happen. Would've much rather Aussies have an off night like this in the pool stages! Not a semi!

14 points in a half? Fkn REALLY????

Ice Cold.

This is a disaster

bad or contested shot after shot. offence is torn to pieces. this is horrible.

14-35 at HT. wtf am i watching.

Did the Boomers watch the Opals-Serbia game for inspiration? Because our energy/intensity levels are sadly Opals-like today.

Fourth it is.

Chokers

Newley would get us out of this!

Boomers can't get inside. Great D from Serbia and Aussies are not physical enough to push into the paint. Don't know if I can watch the second half.

This game is done, start the man management for the bronze medal game. I just hope we give a good account of ourselves against Spain.

Lemanis throwing out some bad lineups trying to get something to stick. Small ball with Anderson at the five is just dumb dumb dumb. When stuff breaks down like this you need dribble penetration from guards and its the one thing we arent great at. You cant come back from scoring 14 points in a half.

Strap yourselves in, we are either about to see our worst ever Boomers performance or the biggest and best come back in Boomers history!

lets try cut it to 10 before the 4th! Drive the fucking lane stop setting for shit 3's, now would be a good time for broekhoff to step up

We need a massive natural disaster in the next few minutes to take the focus off this.

Anyone heard any Tsunami warnings?

Starting 5 choking with 5/22 shooting. Serb defense is super-physical. Hand-checking seems totally fine.

Lemanis isn't the one completely shitting the bed. This is on the players.

To try find a positive... I guess it's good to only be down by 21 when you score 14 in a half?

Better movement off the ball creates passing lanes, opening up the paint for penetration or passes inside.

Lemanis' body language says it all. How can we beat Spain?

I think all Motum is going to provide is a negative on defense and the rebound count.

Pack of Wolves my arse

Still waiting for us to catch up to the point per minute mark.

Just an off night?

Not sure what went wrong in this one, sadly Serbia just need to match us from here and win comfortably.

We just can't hit water, if we jumped out of a boat in this one!

USA Gold, easily...

Spain must be shaking in their boots watching this one

Serbia takes over Lithuania's role as Australia's heart breakers.

ingles still sucking majorly from 3 point

We just looked rattled from the opening tip, weren't really executing, and missed open looks. One of those nights I think, which is a bit of a shame at this stage of the tourney.

Is Joyce coaching the boomers tonight?

Deja vu, being totally burnt by a Euro superstar in a semi.

Teodosic having a night out. While Patty can't buy a bucket despite some good looks. It happens.... Tough one Boomers. Time to regroup

Silver lining: $2.65

Serbia made us go small and we haven't gone small all tourney, and Lemanis is throwing out the wrong small lineups. Why havent we seen the starters with Broekhoff in for Baynes? Or Anderson in for Baynes?

The players didnt show up to play abd Lemanis is making poor decisions. Combine that with a bad shooting night and you dont stand a chance.

Oh god, my pessimistic brother was right. Imagine what the non-basketball-loving Aussie public will be thinking.

Time to give up and prepare for the bronze medal game if we are going to just randomly test out junk combinations.

Has Teodosic ever smiled in his life?

Yes, no starters on the floor this quarter please.

Is a chance at Bronze considered a failure for the Boomers?

I know this is a huge opportunity lost, not so much the resul, but the way we have played is not inspiring, just asking if we medal from here is it still a failure at the Olympics...

I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real

Even though the guys are shocked by the defense of a very strong Serbian team, I still love the way they played up to now and would like the coaches to continue.

We had more than enough good looks from the start but just didn't make the shots this time.

And for all the comedians: this is exactly the specific situation I was talking about needing another big wing like Newley for to provide lineup flexibility when teams make us go small. You need big wings to go small properly.

boomers using the opals play book.

I wonder how much we're at a disadvantage by not having EuroBasket. The Serbs can play against quality competition every other year

We were good in the group games but when the pressure went up we couldnt handle the pressure. Unlike the Serbs in both womens and mens they handled the pressure when it counted, and stayed mentally strong whereas unfortunately we crumbled mentally under fhe pressure and our mental frailities were exposed.

We might do better in the bronze medal game game because there will be less pressure therefore less likelihood of the guys crumbling mentallty

Exum, Simmons, Maker would have kicked Serbia's arse. Who is the idiot thinking this. They are boys still, good but in the big world they are still in nappies. They need time to mature. Maybe in 4 years time

Bogut has looked so good physically until this game which has really hit us today I think, too.

In 2020, who knows. Baynes might still be kicking around.

No winning a medal would not be a failure as we've never done it before. We needed to win this game to get a medal though, we're not going to beat USA or Spain in the bronze game so this was always our grand final.

Full credit Serbia's defence absolutely destroyed us in the first half and then combine that with some sphincter tightening by us and we're going to finish 4th again.

Will be disappointed if Serbia don't give the USA a decent game.

Yeah, Eurobasket gives the Euro teams practice in high pressure elimination games, with plenty of quality opponents.

The new qualification system won't help the Aussies much either, as it is basically a pool-based qualification system. Can we do a Eurovision and ask to compete against the Euros?

Mavs fans suddenly not quite so excited anymore

D-E-P-R-E-S-S-I-N-G

Pick and roll defense. Damn it was bad.

The disappointing part is of the other three SF teams we drew Serbia who are comfortably the worst of the three so we had a spot in the gold medal game and guaranteed silver for the taking.

Now we're going to miss out on a medal again, that's what hurts it was all set up for us.

The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

I am not going to write us off for that Bronze just yet, this hurts, sure but we can regroup and can take it to anyone on our night.

This just hasn't been our night.

The point made about mental toughness and how the Boomers and Opals approached these bad losses is a valid one...

Spain are beatable, just depends how we come out after a game like this.

When is the bronze game, is it before the gold game?

Well said Andrew gaze. This is not the time to be critical. We all wanted this badly and are probably not dealing with the result well, but it's about learning and building.

Bronze 00:30
Gold 04:45

You would assume we will shoot better than this game, it's almost impossible to have two games back to back shooting as bad as we have.

When they win a semi final at an Olympics, then can we start saying best team ever. European teams are elite.

Overall all, was awesome to see them play the way they did. No need to get carried away, every team has an off night and for it happened to be tonight was the unfortunate part.

Great campaign by the boomers.

Would be nice having some bigs with touch like Jokic.

Spot on Mick. Newley is the type of player Australia missed today.

I'm sure we will be better next game however 4th for us ties our best ever finish at an Olympics, 4th for Spain would be humiliating for them.

As disappointing as this is, a bronze medal game against Spain is still a huge opportunity to do something the Boomers have never done.

Don't forget Bairstow, bigger loss than expected in this one and he is young still...

3/30 now from outside the arc. Unusual to still be this cold once the game is dead and pressure gone.

Get 60

Positives?

47 in the second half.

Motum played hard at the end.

Most of the finals have been blowouts.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

the game was basically over after only 2 quarters

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!

- 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.

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.

^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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

"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.

@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...

:)

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?

Sorry for these repeat posts. Glitch with my mobile

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.

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.

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.

I was waiting for a ´we needed Newley´ comment lol, don´t get me wrong I was fuming but some of the overreactions like another thread of ´we need to produce better ball handlers´ are hilarious, our ball handlers were ok in other games.

I want to say Lemanis has done a fantastic job and I think next to no responsibility for this loss falls on him, unless you hold him accountable for preparing the boys mentally. The guys played tight, were easily rattled and by the second quarter Lemanis had to try something, thus shaking things up, subbing in Goulding etc. However, basically the only decision I have strongly disagreed with all tournament was using Lisch in the first quarter not Martin. So, you wanted Martin to hound Kalneitis, but not the elite pg in the competition in Teodosic? I find this staggering, and although he is a quality player the way we guarded him was just shocking.

I don´t want to join the overreaction club, but after incredible tournaments what Delly and Bogut dished up in a semi final was horrible. As very proud and competitive guys I really hope (although I have little confidence against Spain) they come out and set the tone in the bronze game.

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.

I think we finish 4th, but keep Lemanis for the overall great job he has done structurally and if hypothetically you can provide him Simmons, Exum and Maker we can be formidable.

Oh finally as a P.s, a big ´were you f***ing joking´ to anyone on this thread who said ¨We have already beaten them, we should take care of business.¨ It was Serbia!!! A consistent basketball powerhouse. Now noone saw that performance coming, but it was always going to be tough to knock them over twice. I highly doubt it, but if someone any of the player shared your mentality then the attitude is even more disappointing than the performance.

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..

¨Especially with the Spanish guards¨.. you mean this as a weakness? Yes, Mills and Delly being guarded all night by Rubio, Rodriguez and Llull should make it a walk in the park..

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

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!!"

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.