SF: Australia vs Serbia

[CoachZ]

Kalinic shared the white board from the lockeroom before the game vs Australia. It says:

Team Meeting 18:15
Stepping Out to the Court 18:25
SER - AUS 19:00

Crazy Serbs!



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That pretty much sums it up

[CoachZ]

The Original vs Cheap Chinese Knockoff

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[R1ou]

Like a rematch of Spain-Greece 2006,Aussies couldn't set a single play because of their nervousness.Second time is also the toughest one at sports.



Congratulations to Serbia and their fans.A perfect game from your side.

[AmonRA]

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.

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

The only champion here is Australia, me thinks.

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

I told you so

[Srle]

It was really sickening listening so called expert on international basketball Fran Fraschilla , hyping Australia all night long during the NBC broadcast and picturing how this was shock result , what a buffoon , like there were tons of great results for Australian NT basketball in the past 20 years , just because they have bunch of overrated players playing in NBA , that doesn't make them better players than ours, Baynes was playing for Union Olimpia several seasons ago for example , he was talent less hack then as he is today. Same can be said for other Australian players as well.

[Terrorizer]

Winning a local pickup game in my block is a bigger deal than winning a Oceania Champioship.

Well, if CoachZ hails from Novi Beograd then he most probably speaks the truth. Been there with my buddies from Russia, played some pickup games in Blokovi and, boy, I was really amazed by both the quality and atmosphere there on a regular day. We also have some 'top courts' for pickup games in Moscow but they are not numerous and there is too much snobbish elitism coupled with cheap pretense and show-off on most of those (and pro players who come there don't like to play any defense, at least not against 'simple folks', since they feel that they are 'above it'). While in Novi Beograd's blokovi we won some games (but it was never easy) and in some others got beaten handily, I can totally say that those Serbian guys play like the result of the game really matters and that's what I liked the most there 'cause it's the way the things should be (and it also reminded me about Russian street basketball mentality back in the 90s when I was young). There is a lot of guys who are really good on the court, some of them with history in (semi)professional basketball, who regularly play there, so I guess that some Fiji or Nauru national teams won't cut it in those surroundings. Hell, even Kiwis are not that certain for the win if a good street team from the local Serbian guys is assembled.

Not me. If Serbia beats Australia I'll give them all the credit they deserve.

Well, I hope you will keep your promise.

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.

Having in mind what a terrible clusterfuck the group B really was it's not really rational to have a discourse like this one. Well, you can say that USA was really happy to have such an easy way to finals since they only need to beat Argentina, who were only a Nocioni three's highly unrealistical drop into the basket away from being eliminated at the group stage, and Spain, who were beyond abysmal in their first three games.

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

Well, I could foresee a sweep in Serbia's favour before the game (and it happened) or a tense game but Australia wiping out Serbian team from the floor in a game which matters... Meh, unlikely. You know, I think that there are some European teams in Rio which can be seen as convenient to play for Australia (Lithuania first and foremost but Croatia also) but Serbia, alongside with Spain and France (despite their sound loss in the group stage), is, on the other hand, an 'incovenient' one. Having good 1-on-1 defenders among backcourt players already turns any solid Australia's opponent into an inconvenient one as making life tough for Patty, forcing him to go for uneasy shots and, hence, keeping his shooting percentage low is essential in making Australia's offensive game much less dangerous. Add to this Raduljica's clear-cut ability to manhandle defensively shaky Baynes in the paint, Jokic's passing ability (which I finally was impressed with) doomed to exploit holes in Australian defense, Aussies' lousy defense from p'n'r' (Kalnietis and Valanciunas p'n'r was the only Lithuania's chance to keep it close in their qf but JV decided to have an off tournament till the last) and Serbian ability to make their paint overcrowded defensively with playing both Raduljica and Jokic simultaneously together... and Serbia is totally not a preferable matchup for Aussies.

There is no question in my mind that Australia is the better team. After all, they did win the first game by 15.

In a game, everything can happen. Spain is well-known for having sloppy starts in the tournaments only to have another medal finish after it (well, most of the times). I think that Serbia is a better team and it has a better squad. Not that it is overly impressive (some other current national teams have more in terms of pure talent) but this Serbian team has more depth and offensive diversity. Australia relies too much on its stars. And its stars aren't really that 'bright'. Mills having a night off shooting-wise or duo of Bogut and Andersen feeling themselves too old to produce miracles hugely degrades the level of this Aussie team.

For example, even if I don't like the way both Ingles and Baynes evolved since they came to NBA quality of the first 7 players in Aussies rotation (which is Mills, Dellavedova, Bogut, Ingles, Baynes, Andersen, Broekhoff) is very good, comparable with the best European teams, but then they have a big dive deep down in terms of quality. Just look at PG/combo guard positions of today's opponents: you can spent a long time arguing which duo is better for international basketball - Dellavedova/Mills or Teodosic/Markovic but if we consider Jovic/Nedovic and Lisch/Martin the question is not even worth asking. With all the huge respect to David Andersen's way of playing in this tournament, I feel that a player of similar age, status and talent won't be called up by Djordjevic (absence of Krstic in recent Serbian squads makes my point even more reasonable). And the quality of your back-up players means a lot in games like these.

Unprecented roster's depth was maybe a single most significant reason for Spain's international success between 2005 and 2015. And even in this tournament their 12th player who played only a garbage time in Rio was Abrines. And let's try to imagine how much a guy like Abrines will play in a team like Australia? To put it shortly, Australia's stars are not that good to allow it to be that limited in terms of roster's depth.

I'll let the boomers do the talking for me, then the Europeans might have to admit Australia have the far better players,

Where did you get there? Why Australians have not only better but far better players? Ah, it seems that representation in NBA is the only adequate measurement of players' worth known to the civilized world, right

the fact that Australia has like 8 nba players now speaks volumes about the caliuatites of the players we are producing. It's not easy to make the nba. How many Serbians are in the nba ?

None of the Australian players is an NBA star these days (not that being an NBA star speaks volumes about your worth in international basketball but that's another topic). Maybe Bogut was the one, if injury-plagued, back in the day, Mills had a long-shot opportunity to become a star if he was more trusted by Popovich but that's all. Even someone like Dellavedova with all his recent fame and surrounding hype is a role player in NBA. And, despite a very widespread stereotype, not every role (or garbage time) player who has an established career in NBA is supreme in his playing qualities to the best players active in Europe. You can check stats which Baynes and Ingles had in Europe (and they were no young prospects when they played here) cause you might be surprised that it didn't look like they really outgrew that below average competition from sloppy European scrubs before they were 'good enough' to come to NBA.

Well, speaking about the game itself, it was obviously a great one for Serbia. It was all decided with their defense. 14 points scored by Australia in the first half is not a result of some Aussies extreme sloppiness or lack of luck. It just was this Serbian team who gave a defensive performance 'for The Book', if you pardon me my little Erdos-ism. Like CoachZ already said, they did an excellent job in ruining Australian offensive 'plan A' and once Mills was unable to get himself some good open looks because of magnificent Markovic's defensive effort on him, Delly started to get nervous (especially since Serbians never allowed to use his beloved backdoor cut due to their extremely mobile defense), Andersen started to miss those fade-away jumpers he previously hit and Bogut started to play way too sophisticated for his teammates to comprehense, it all went downhill for Australia. Serbia didn't even need a sizeable Bogdanovic's ontirbution in offense to run away with it.

An unsung hero of this game is most probably Stefan Markovic who not only completely shut down Mills with his excruciating defense but also shot 5/5 from the field and dished 5 assists. But Macvan finally had a great game also. While he is not the same player in terms of speed, agility, athleticism and even shooting abilities he was before his injuries, he found a smart way to contribute in a really helpful way this evening. A great effort from Milan!

[aussieasker]

Good game, Serbia and Serbian fans. Taught us a lesson in basketball today. Hopefully some of our fans will realise that we're not quite as good as they think we are.

[CHBB]

Yeah he had it all what a shame.

You could field one of the strongest starting fives ever just from the players who got injured in that era alone. Penny, Allan Houston, Grant, Mashburn, Webber. I know I'm forgetting some.

[Earendil]

http://giphy.com/gifs/silent-cyclist...-AW0DVIu30Klgs whole game in one glyph

[CoachZ]

Like I said, he always holds grudges Don't allow him to get a second shot at you, this happens

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[CoachZ]

this is from 2002 wc

I'm little bit drunk but Sinalco wasn't our sponsor and also I see Michael Finley

Yeah you are right. It is 2002

The one from 1996 was with Paspalj trying to sell the Dream Shake to Hakeem

[Aleksandar22]

Time to pull an old classic clip from the Atlanta Olympics This is the attitude needed vs USA

https://twitter.com/mikekaplan_/stat...64189922783232

this is from 2002 wc

I'm little bit drunk but Sinalco wasn't our sponsor and also I see Michael Finley

[CoachZ]

Yeah he had it all what a shame.

Believe it or not, Penny Hardaway was my idol as a teen playing BBall I still have my Penny Nike's and the old black Orlando jersey. I loved how game looked so easy when he was playing it. When he got injured and shit started happening, I couldn't watch him, my heart would break seeing him on the court.

[usagre]

Penny was the truth.

Yeah he had it all what a shame.

[usagre]

The key to that game was that Divac got called on some very, very suspicious fouls and he fouled out in the 3rd quarter. The second option at C Savic was out for that game with an injury. So noone could defend the middle. Robinson had a field day vs a young Rebraca. We were up at the half time and played really well. Divac fouling out sealed it.

No doubt. I remember that game clearly. Another key was the USA defense really cranked it up in the second half and limited Serbia offensively big time.