SF: Australia vs Serbia

[Boomer]

Something weird is happening with the Australian mentality. Modesty and hard work has been the basis of a lot of Australia's sporting success for a long time. With Australia achieving so much sporting success expectations and arrogance has risen a lot. Now when success isn't achieved Australians are becoming sore losers. In mens basketball though its really working out for Australia combining real talent with work ethic and confidence. Apart from Mills and Dellavedova though I hate this Australian team. Bogut, Baynes, Ingles... arrogant %##&-%$#-'s I can't stand the vibe of most if Australias players. I really want Serbia to beat them and there is a good chance. Will be amazing to see them brought back to earth. Imagine women and mens basketball teams both dropped by Serbia. Maybe they will take notice.

You actually sound arrogant my friend, way to generalise lol. Are you Australian or just an Australian hater lol. Australian sporting culture has always been brutal, we expect successs we always have, that's why we over achieve a lot in all sports, we have a sporting and competitive culture. If you can't handle it well.. Follow the French team lol

[Darrell Armstrong]

its all true, but never underestimate heart of champion..
for me it's 50-50 game

The only champion here is Australia, me thinks.

[AmonRA]

we'll see dear Watson, we'll see..

[Beez]

The final score of that game is completely unrealistic compared to the strength of the teams. The game was close and very tight and it went from a 1 or 2 possession game to +15 in last two minutes where we collapsed. The gap in quality is very, very small. It will be up to who plays better and has a better game plan.

Bogut's double foul really hurt the Aussie's. He was in foul trouble most of the game. With Bogut limited, Raduljica looked like Charley Barkley. I would be very surprised if he repeated that performance.

At the same time, it's hard to imagine Delly repeated his performance in that game. I'm not sure anyone has played a better game in this tournament.

Regardless of who wins, I expected a good game.

[reamily]

Serbia had the simplest path to semis ever: they just beat the two worst teams in the competition (China and Venezuela) to reach QF, then had one of the easiest match-ups from group B in Croatia. Australia has proved to be much better up to this point. But you never know.

And people will say serbia had the simpliest path to finals ever by beating Australia and again simpliest path to Olympic Gold by beating an incomplete and disorganized us team

[Oly_fan]

I think the problem is Mills is an offensive player somehow Milos would defend either Delly and Patty so really Jovic and Markovic to play their finest game and Jokic to mature fast against Sheamus and the gang..

Teodosic should be defending Ingles or Broekhoff.

Serbia had the simplest path to semis ever: they just beat the two worst teams in the competition (China and Venezuela) to reach QF, then had one of the easiest match-ups from group B in Croatia. Australia has proved to be much better up to this point. But you never know.

Croatia topped group B. If that doesn't matter, then I guess Serbia finishing 4th doesn't matter either.

[Victorious]

I think the four best teams are in the semi's. Well, perhaps France might be better than Serbia, but not much better. It would seem that Australia is going to write history and make the finals, which would mean that for the first time in history there is no European team in the final. Unless, Spain does its trick against the Americans.

[Darrell Armstrong]

Croatia topped group B. If that doesn't matter, then I guess Serbia finishing 4th doesn't matter either.

Any team from group B would have finished 4th in group A as long as China and Venezuela were in there too. Croatia wasn't the best team from group B and it's quite clear now, don't you think? I don't know if Argentina or Lithuania would have fared better against Serbia, but the top team from group B was Spain, and most probably, they would have crushed Serbia as they did with France.

[Darrell Armstrong]

And people will say serbia had the simpliest path to finals ever by beating Australia and again simpliest path to Olympic Gold by beating an incomplete and disorganized us team

Not me. If Serbia beats Australia I'll give them all the credit they deserve. But, come on, China and Venezuela were overwhelmed by every other squad in their group. And Croacia lost against Nigeria and Argentina. They got extremely lucky scoring an unexpected win against Spain the opening day. Had they lost that game they may not even have made it out of group stage.

[CoachZ]

Any team from group B would have finished 4th in group A as long as China and Venezuela were in there too. Croatia wasn't the best team from group B and it's quite clear now, don't you think? I don't know if Argentina or Lithuania would have fared better against Serbia, but the top team from group B was Spain, and most probably, they would have crushed Serbia as they did with France.

The same Serbia you lost to by a margin last year? It would've been a tight game, that could go either way. We are always a tough matchup for Spain.

[Darrell Armstrong]

The same Serbia you lost to by a margin last year? It would've been a tight game, that could go either way. We are always a tough matchup for Spain.

You mean past Eurobasket where Spain came up with gold and Serbia with nothing? Yeah, great win. You must be proud.

[Straight forward]

Australia. And it might be sweep. I hope Serbians will give a heck of a fight, but Australia into some serious mode now.

[Raze Lupin]

The final score of that game is completely unrealistic compared to the strength of the teams. The game was close and very tight and it went from a 1 or 2 possession game to +15 in last two minutes where we collapsed. The gap in quality is very, very small. It will be up to who plays better and has a better game plan.

In your opinion What do you think the gap between USA and Serbia is?

[CoachZ]

You mean past Eurobasket where Spain came up with gold and Serbia with nothing? Yeah, great win. You must be proud.

Yep I am. Basketball is a game of matchups. Beaten by Lithuania, killed Spain. When talking about other teams, always take into account how you play against them before making claims that you would sweep them and destroy them. Serbia and Spain games are always tough and tight and this generation with Teodosic has always given Spain fits. That is all I said.

[SashKX]

This game will depend completely on which Serbian team shows up. Australia has been very consistent this entire tournament and we all know what to expect. On the other hand, our team had games that ranged from challenging USA harder than anyone has for a long time, down to games where we played like our women's team, good hustling work followed by missed layups, as was what happened against Croatia. I doubt the latter will happen, considering our games with our dear western brethren are always special, but team could easily be mentally exhausted after that one. If we approach the game like we did against the USA (except for those dreadful first 5 minutes), it's gonna be a win in double digits easily, but I doubt it will go that way either, Aussies have so far played much better defense than USA.
So, it might seem to someone that Australia is the favorite here, based on their consistent performance and deceptively large point difference in that group win, but they're really not, there's no favorite in this game.

As I said it before, we need to win this one or we ain't getting a medal, right now the most important game of the tournament so they better show up.