I would say the Serbian guards are excellent at using screens. Their away from the ball screening action into on-balls ensured their guards were rarely going against set defences.

I agree as a country we can get better at teaching players to create individually, but the problem today was we were forced into one-on-one play rather than sticking to our passing game.

It was a lot like the practice game against Brazil when they crowded the ball and the first pass, then clogged the lane from the weakside. The Adelaide 36ers early in Smyth's reign were very good at this.

Paul I think they took our passing game away completely by extending the D, and we couldn't release the pressure valve by hitting a few 3s or scoring off backcuts. When that happens, you have to get dribble penetration from your backcourt, and we couldn't do it. Our guys - Ingles in particular - penetrate without purpose, which is because they don't have a great deal of control due to poor ball handling. They're looking to pass first, which is not what you should do when penetrating. You should be looking to score first, with passing coming as a counter to good defence.

I thought Delly and Mills did a much better job in the games leading up to this one looking to score first on drives, but they were both terrible today.

I don't think Ive seen a player be able to break down defences like Milos.

Mick

"Paul I think they took our passing game away completely by extending the D, and we couldn't release the pressure valve by hitting a few 3s or scoring off backcuts. "

Spot on, as a Serbian player was essentially quoted as saying " we made it look easy, but it wasn't - it was very hard work"

Good on them ( serbia) , no one really wants to play against teams that fold to you. I just hope that we give Spain a defeat , or at a minimum a very very close tussle for the whole game , so that basketball fans see that the quality of our 2016 boomers team is at a level to have challenged the US.

Execution under pressure people

And What happened to our defence on the ball?

Is there a chance we'd chalked this one up as a win given we'd beaten them earlier and we belted the Lithos ?

I don't necessarily agree, I think we have guards that are good enough, we just didn't make shots early and had to chase the game and it didn't work out for us.

We start hitting early shots and stay with them, different ball game altogether. This thread then becomes a non-issue IMO.

Pfft.
Shit happens.
There's a reason (in addition to money) that basketball finals are traditionally multi-game. You could argue that Australia had a single bad game all tournament, unfortunately it just happened to be in a sudden-death final.

Its sad, almost unspeakably so, this team deserved a Silver medal, but all the wailing and gnashing of teeth is getting a bit much.

In sports it often seems that finals against teams you recently beat, (even in an earlier final) are "danger" games. As though you've shown them your best, you know they'll have a plan to beat you, but just don't know what it will be.
Not sure if that's a valid observation or just perception.

At the end of the day, Serbia have shown they are a very good team.

The hope now must be that Australia can still medal. It won't be the right colour but will still be their best ever achievement.

How do we 'deserve a medal' ?? This ridiculous mentality is exactly why we haven't got one. You don't 'deserve' a medal. You bloody win them by performing when it counts. Like Serbia has. And like we still can.

How do we 'deserve a medal' ?? This ridiculous mentality is exactly why we haven't got one.