Olgun Uluc: Inbox: Jonah Bolden has withdrawn from the Australian Boomers’ World Cup campaign, due to personal reasons.
Australia Rumors
After a lacklustre performance against Canada on Friday night, the Australian Boomers bounced back with an impressive 81-73 win at RAC Arena in Perth. Jonah Bolden was the star of the show, coming off the bench with 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting, swinging momentum Australia’s way in the third quarter with multiple game-changing plays.
Olgun Uluc: Mitch Creek has been added to the Australian Boomers team, I’m told. He’ll join the group today.
Gregg Popovich has a devious plan to slow down Patty Mills when Team USA takes on the Boomers in next week’s pre-World Cup exhibition games in Melbourne. The master NBA coach is going to fatten the Australian point guard up. “I’m going to take him out to eat,” Popovich, jokingly told reporters on Los Angeles on Tuesday. “I’m going to fill him up and try to make him fat so he can’t move around so quickly.”
Mitchell is prepared for plenty of Ingles’ legendary trash talk and cheeky play. “He’s always grabbing at you, pulling your shorts and stuff,” said Mitchell, recounting his experience on the Jazz practice court with Ingles. “He’s a fierce competitor and I’m looking forward to it.”
NBA superstar Ben Simmons has copped the full wrath of Australia’s tall poppy syndrome, and Boomers coach Andrej Lemanis doesn’t like it. Simmons had already been heavily criticised for pulling out of Australia’s World Cup campaign and the warm-up games against Canada and the US. But the negative attention has gone into overdrive since Simmons touched down in Australia recently.
