Mills could lead Boomers to title post US exit: Pierce

Australia point guard Patty Mills’ performances at the basketball World Cup have helped propel his team into a hot favourite for the title after the United States were knocked out by France, according to NBA great Paul Pierce.

The Boomers advanced to their first World Cup semi-final with an 82-70 victory over the Czech Republic with Mills scoring 24 points while adding six assists and four rebounds.

“Australia is certainly playing really (well),” Pierce told ESPN. “Patty Mills is the perfect player for these types of games.

“He’s a three point-shooter and been playing for a number of years,” Pierce said. “They should be favorite.”

The Boomers play Spain, who beat them in the playoff for the bronze medal at the Rio Olympics, in the last four.

Argentina, who beat 2015 runners-up Serbia, will meet France, who ended the United States’ 13-year and 58-game unbeaten run in tournament play, in Dongguan.

The young Team US made up of second-tier NBA stars were defeated 89-79 in the quarter-finals by France on Wednesday, bringing a premature close to their World Cup defence.

More significantly, it was the reigning world and Olympic champions’ first defeat in a major competition since the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup.

The loss by the Americans, who had won the last two tournaments, was greeted with some surprise, although not entirely unexpected in the United States.

Many of the top NBA players, like LeBron James, James Harden and Steph Curry, were in a wider squad of players nominated for consideration for the World Cup and next year’s Olympics in Tokyo, but chose to miss the current tournament in China.

The absence of the game’s top players had affected the team, who struggled offensively and were a little too small to match up against other sides’ big men, according to ESPN’S Brian Windhorst.

“To win, America needs more of its best,” Windhorst wrote.

“It had been 13 years since Team USA didn’t win a gold medal, and the importance and the honour has slipped,” he said.

“America’s top players have to consider their plans for next summer.”

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the deposed champions lost 94-89 to Serbia in a dead-rubber at the Basketball World Cup, a day after surrendering their 13-year unbeaten run.

In a later match, the Czech Republic got the better of Poland 94-84.

Thursday’s “classification” game in Dongguan was the final that never was: the holders against the favourites.

The US were down a scarcely believable 32-7 after the first quarter and headed for a big defeat, before clawing back some of the deficit and a degree of pride.

Harrison Barnes of the Sacramento Kings, the only remaining member of the triumphant 2016 Rio Olympic roster, said: “There are no regrets from our group in terms of what we’ve given, what we’ve sacrificed.”

There was no medal up for grabs and the US have already qualified for next summer’s Tokyo Games.

But there was added spice after Serbia’s coach said prior to the World Cup that if the Americans met his team, “May god help them”.

Sasha Djordjevic dismissed the comment as motivational irony but said that he could see the US were still shell-shocked from the France defeat in the first quarter.

Gregg Popovich’s team failed to score a point during one barren five-minute period.

A rout was on the cards for Serbia, whose tournament also came to a surprise quarter-final end, at the hands of Argentina.

The 70-year-old Popovich chewed his lip and brooded.

But the US fought back in the second quarter and reduced the gap to just four points at half-time.

Going into the fourth quarter, Serbia -- led once more by the Sacramento Kings’ Bogdan Bogdanovic -- were only three points ahead.

But the US comeback fell narrowly short and they have another classification match on Saturday to decide who finishes seventh and eighth.

Bogdanovic, who has been one of the players of the tournament in China, led all scoring with 28 points.

Barnes had 22 points and said that the Americans would give it their all in their tournament closer, when they will face the loser of the Czech Republic versus Poland.

“On Saturday we have that opportunity to go out once again, play a game, represent our country,” he said.

“For some of us -- potentially all of us -- it could be our last time we wear a USA jersey, or the beginning of many.

“We will just savour that opportunity.”

In Friday’s semi-finals, Spain play Australia and France take on Argentina.

Agencies