Goorjian: “Mills in best shape I’ve seen”

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Brian Goorjian has backed Patty Mills to continue to get better and better as he plays more minutes at the Olympics.

Australian Boomers coach Brian Goorjian has backed Patty Mills’ ability to perform at the Olympics, after the 35-year old made a welcome return to form against Serbia.

Mills knocked down 28 points in the exhibition game victory, bouncing back from a cold stretch and lack of game time in recent months.

In this past NBA season, he played in the least amount of games since his rookie season (36), across the Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat. He logged close to career-low minutes, and found the going tough in games against China and the USA.

But the star Boomer stepped it up in Australia’s final Olympic warm-up game.

“He (Mills) came into this thing physically in the best shape I’ve seen him, with the motivation to play well and for us to medal,” Goorjian said.

“I just know the more he plays [the better he’ll get], because he’s been through a year where he hasn’t played a lot, so he needs reps and he needs games.

“But you can see tonight he’s an important piece for us and he’s highly motivated.”

Mills is one of the most celebrated players in the national team’s history, with a habit of taking his game to another level when representing his country.

The 2014 NBA champion led the Boomers to a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, with an incredible 42-point display against Slovenia.

Australia will be looking to build on that historic ‘rose gold’ in Paris, taking plenty of confidence from a hard-fought win in Abu Dhabi and encouraging performance against the highly-fancied USA team.

“We need to be able to play with pace, and when you play at pace the defensive end is really important or you can’t get going,” Goorjian explained.

“In the tournament we’re going to have to defend at a very high level.

“If you look at the game last night [against the US] to tonight, we were a lot sloppier with the ball last night.

“I thought we were better with the basketball.

“We know we’re in an absolute s—fight in our group, so all we can do right now is control being the best version of us.”

The Boomers will take on Spain in their Olympic opener on July 27, Canada on July 30 and and Greece on August 2.