Australia has fallen to Brazil on night two of the Boomers vs The World warm-up series in Melbourne on Wednesday night.
The visitors stunned the Boomers early then overcame a third-quarter Australian comeback to win, 90-86, in front of a crowd of 10,891 at Rod Laver Arena.
The series between the Boomers, Brazil, South Sudan and Venezuela provides crucial preparation for the FIBA World Cup which will be played in Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia from August 25 to September 10.
Brazil burst out of the blocks to lead Australia by 10 at quarter time but the Boomers reduced the deficit to two points at half time before mounting a third-quarter charge.
Through Josh Giddey, Duop Reath, Nick Kay and captain Patty Mills, the home team surged to take a 71-64 buffer into the final break.
But Brazil kept coming and reaped the rewards of their superior ball movement and efficient shooting, in contrast Australia struggled from the three-point line going at 26 per cent.
Post game, Giddey (20 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks) said while the loss was disappointing there were learnings to take and improvements to make.
“Fortunately for us these are practice games and it’s an opportunity for the guys to firstly play together and continually learn and grow,” Giddey said.
“It’s the time to make mistakes, learn how to play with each other and there’s a lot from tonight that we need to learn from.
“We’ve got another game in 24 hours so we’re not going to look to deeply into it. We’ll watch the film tomorrow, see what we did wrong and get ready for South Sudan tomorrow night.”
Giddey topped an Australian stat sheet which also featured 11 points (all scored in the second half) from Mills and contributions from Nick Kay (10 points, 7 rebounds, 2 steals and a block), Reath (10 points, 5 rebounds) and Joe Ingles (8 points, 5 assists, 3 rebounds).
The Boomers are back on court tomorrow night against South Sudan at 7.45pm with Venezuela and Brazil playing in the earlier game at 5.30pm.
