By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
The highly anticipated 2024 Paris Olympics have begun, and the basketball tournament started with an exciting clash between Australia and Spain in front of 27.000 fans in Lille.
The Boomers took down the Spaniards 92-80 to start the Games on a high note.
As coach Brian Goorjian said: “We wanted to have some grit. We wanted to use the ball and move the ball side to side, be better defensively than we were at the FIBA World Cup. And I just thought Spain made two heavy runs at us. They took the lead, but we were fearless”.
Jock Landale had a great game, leading Australia with 20 points, and was just a rebound shy of a double-double. All that for a game-high PIR of 28.
Patty Mills once again showcased exceptional shooting skills, following Landale with 19 points, while Josh Giddey acted like a floor general, flirting with a triple-double with 17 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists.
Dyson Daniels and Jack McVeigh followed with 13 points and seven rebounds each.
Coach Goorjian also highlighted something else: “I made point of a guy like Josh Green. He’s a plus 18 and he doesn’t score a point. We had a similar situation against France with Nick Kay. He didn’t score a point. It was a plus 19 or 20, just in getting contributions from everybody. And we need to get better. But defensively, from what we’ve been, we’re moving forward”.
Aldama and Llull were not enough
Santi Aldama stood out with a game-high 27 points and five rebounds for Spain, followed by Sergio Llull’s 17 points, while Willy Hernangomez added 14.
Specially Llull with big threes tried to mount a comeback in the fourth quarter, but Australia was not caught off-guard like it has happened before.
“Yeah, we showed a little video of the past to have them locked in and I did use a timeout for that”, explained Goorjian. “There was a fear from the start. No matter how well or how much you play, in three minutes they can go whack, whack, whack and you’re in trouble. So Llull is a concern and he’s a concern at the end of the games but I think as a staff we did a good job of making them aware of it and I thought again at the end he took a couple of tough ones where we got stops and went down and scored”.
Photo credit: FIBA