Aussies target USA in Rio Olympics
An Australian squad with four NBA champions ripped Serbia 95-80 on Monday, setting up an Olympic showdown with a US lineup one of them says they can upset.
Patty Mills scored 26 points while Matthew Dellavedova contributed 23 points and 13 assists in the Boomers’ victory, setting up a Wednesday matchup with the Americans to decide the Group A preliminary round lead.
“We believe we can do some special things in this tournament,” said Joe Ingles, a 2014 Euroleague champion at Maccabi Tel Aviv now with the Utah Jazz.
Mills put it plainer last month, telling Brisbane’s Courier-Mail newspaper of the US NBA stars: “They can be beaten.”
“With the group we have, we believe that we can beat them,” Mills said. “To be able to achieve greatness we need to be able to beat greatness, and that’s what we see with the USA team… We’re going to give it a red-hot crack that’s for sure.”
The Aussies are 0-14 against the Americans, having been routed in 2008 and 2012 Olympic quarter-finals by the United States.
But the Boomers, 2-0 in Rio, offer Dellavedova, who helped Cleveland win the NBA title two months ago, 2015 NBA champion Andrew Bogut with Golden State and 2014 champions Mills and Aron Baynes.
“We treat it like any other game,” said Australia coach Andrej Lemanis. “Mentally we’re in a really good place. The most important thing is to do the normal things we usually do.”
Bogut had nine points, 12 rebounds and six assists against Serbia and downplayed the US confrontation.
“We haven’t been in this position very often. We still haven’t done anything,” Bogut said. “We haven’t done crap over the last 20-30 years of basketball. We’ve still got a lot of work to do but we don’t really buy into the predictions too much.”
But being together for all these years has given them a cohesion the US team, which has 10 Olympic debutantes and less than a month together.
“We’ve played together for a number of years and that teamwork builds up over time,” Dellavedova said. “World-class teams that win medals have a core group together for a number of years and we’ve bought into that.”
Even Bogut admits, “If we keep doing what we’re doing as a team we’ve got a chance.”
Miroslav Raduljica scored 25 points to lead Serbia, which fell to 1-1 at Rio. Serbian captain Milos Teodosic added 17 points.
– ‘Respect the game’ –
Serbian coach Sasha Djordjevic said he would not consider tanking against a rival to avoid finishing third in Group A and facing a possible semi-final with the USA.
“Absolutely not. We’re going to play the game to win,” he said. “If we have to play the United States 10 times, we have to respect the game.”
He also poured cold water on Australian upset hopes, saying, “It’s a long way to go before you see another team beat USA. It will happen but right now their level is bigger.”
Mills scored five points and Baynes added four in a 9-0 run that put Australia ahead to stay. Serbia came no closer than four after that
“It was a good game for us in terms of needing to work through some adversity,” Lemanis said. “I’m proud of the way we hung in there.”
The Boomers scored the last 11 points, Ingles hitting a pair of 3-pointers and Mills finishing off a 3-point play as well as scoring off a steal by Dellavedova.
“It’s not our trademark to just give up at the end,” Djordjevic said.
Category: Basketball
