Mills' genius brings Australia closer to Quarter-Finals

NANJING (China) - Whenever called upon, Patty Mills comes to the party and Saturday has been that kind of day; or every other day that Australia has played at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 anyway.

A remarkable 19 points and 9 assists as Australia saw off Dominican Republic 82-76 at the Youth Olympics Gymnasium in Nanjing to earn him the undisputed TCL Player of the Game - his third at this tournament - a record tying feat alongside Poland's Mateusz Ponitka. 

Australia led by a basket at the half time break 40-38 in a very tightly contested game and even though the Boomers outscored the South American side 17-14 in the third period, the battle was far from over. 

However, a turn of events in the last quarter orchestrated by the experience that Australia have amassed in the First Round meant that they have found themselves in more complex scenarios in the past and knew how to deal with that kind of pressure. 

Australia are now top of Group L with a 4-0 record, a win ahead of second placed France, who have a game in hand and take on Lithuania at the same venue later int he day in what has been named as a must-watch tie.

Turning Point: Australia resorted to a full-court press at the beginning of the last quarter forcing Dominican Republic to turn over the ball twice while making it count on the other end of the court to open up a gap that they maintained through to the end. 

A Matthew Dellavedova three-pointer with 1:56 to play sealed it for the Boomers who walked away with a deserved victory to improve their win ratio to a perfect 4-0.

TCL Player of the Game: A team player, leader by example and outright scoring merchant, Patty Mills is a man on a mission in China. Once again, he came up tall for his side and his 19 points and 9 assists played a key role in Australia's fourth consecutive win. 

Stats Don't Lie: Australia dominated the glass amassing 40 rebounds as compared to Dominican Republic's 30 and that right there made a big difference for the Boomers whose tremendous teamwork continues to show at this World Cup - 30 assists as compared to 18 for their opponents on the afternoon. 

Australia were lethal on the free throw line converting 13-of-15 to register 87 percent accuracy while Dominican Republic have themselves to blame converting 15-of-23, missing eight clear shots and losing the game by six points. 

Bottom Line: Australia are growing from strength to strength and do not care about the pedigree and form of their opponents but that they have a job to do and do it they must. They have one foot into the Quarter-Finals as they maintain their sight on the Final in Beijing and a chance to lift the World Cup trophy for the very first time in their history of participation at this stage. 

They Said:  "I do not think that we were mentally there in the first half and I think that we dug ourselves a hole even if we were up. The balls rallied together and a lot of the guys picked up the slack. Mitch Creek was huge and so was Nick Kay. He has been massive for us the whole tournament so we just stuck to kind of what we knew, chipping away and we came up with the win." - Australia forward Jock Landale

"It is always good firstly to come away with a win. We always knew that it was always going to be a tough game for a couple of reasons. Firstly because the way the Dominican Republic play. They play an aggressive style of basketball. They get up to you and make moving offensively difficult and the other reality is that we understand that playing through this format, they were playing for their World Cup survival tonight and there is a desperation that comes with that. I think that we did a pretty good job in absorbing that." - Australia coach Andrej Lemanis

"We played good for 35 minutes but we ran out of gas in the last five minutes. We missed a lot of free throws. We have to continue fighting. The Olympics is clearly our goal. My country never made it to the Olympics. This is the only chance to get there. We got to keep pushing." - Dominican Republic center Eloy Vargas 

"I feel very proud of my players because they played against this big team that is very good and they are concentrated. We missed free throws and we do not have good average three-pointers but I think that we made a good show." - Dominican Republic coach Nestor Garcia 

FIBA