AUS - Nielsen added to Boomers’ injury list

CANBERRA (National team) - Athens Olympian Matt Nielsen will not play in the Australia Post Boomers’ Olympic qualifying series against New Zealand in August due to injury.

Nielsen suffered an undiagnosed problem with his Achilles, coupled with a hamstring strain while playing with club side Lietuvos Rytas in Lithuania.

He will fly to Australia over the weekend and see a doctor in Perth on Tuesday.

"It’s a tremendous blow to our campaign," Boomers Head Coach Brian Goorjian said.

"With CJ, Matty and Bogut all out we don’t have any advantage over New Zealand.

"We’re in a war now.

"We’ll have to play with tenacity and balls if we want to achieve anything."

If surgery is not the best option for Nielsen, it is expected that he will be prescribed an extended period of rest to recover from his injuries.

With Andrew Bogut, CJ Bruton and Nielsen all now unavailable, the odds of a Boomers victory in the 3-test series on August 20, 22 and 24 in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane have lengthened dramatically.

Australia must win the series for the right to play in Beijing in 2008, or excel at a cutthroat qualifying tournament against some of the best teams in the world next July.

"It puts a lot of pressure on the team to play at our absolute best," Goorjian said.

"We’re up against it now and we’ll need all the crowd support we can get."

Basketball Australia