Australia

Boomers thump Argentina to reach basketball semi against USA, as it happened


BASKETBALL: The Boomers are into a semi-final against Team USA

AP

The Boomers’ defence kept them in the game during a scrappy start offensively, and they asserted their dominance in the third before blowing the game apart with that 19-0 run to start the fourth quarter and 37-11 advantage in the final window. It ended in a 97-59 win that was pretty reflective of the game to be honest, especially the second half.

I would’ve loved to see a bit more fight in the quarter from the Argentinians because that is such a sad way for 2004 gold medallist Luis Scola to end his Olympic career. He did get a standing ovation from whatever crowd there was, both teams, and even the officials though, which was lovely to see.

A brutally tough semi-final match-up looms with the US, but we always knew the path to Olympic glory went through America. And if Australia was ever a chance of beating them at a major tournament, it’s now.

Every Boomer who played tonight got on the scoreboard, and that should give them confidence heading into that final-four clash.

Australia barely celebrated that win, in part out of respect for Scola and partly because the job isn’t done. Reaching the semi-final is what they expected.

Patty Mills was having some words in the post-game huddle, many of them sweary, but it basically boiled down to ‘this is where we want to be, this is where we should be, now let’s get it done’.



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