Tokyo Olympics 2021: NBA superstar Joe Ingles holds key to Boomers chances of gold medal

Australia will live and die with Patty Mills’ shooting. But for the Boomers to break their medal drought, they need more ... they need Utah Jazz Joe, says Andrew Bogut.

Every Boomers player must produce their best from here on out to help Australia win a maiden medal in Tokyo, but Joe Ingles is the key.

Joe is definitely the one player that can make a significant difference when he is firing, especially from range, so we need him to continue to look for the basket.

In the last couple of games, it just seems like he hasn’t felt in a flow offensively.

Patty Mills is shooting it almost every time he touches the ball, which can make things tricky. We will live and die with Patty shooting the majority of our shots, but come some of these better teams, a balance will be needed.

Joe Ingles holds the key to Aussie fortunes in Tokyo.

This is where Joe comes in. He can handle the ball in pick and roll situations, shoot the three at an elite level and, most importantly, carry the load offensively at times.

Joe needs to be a more aggressive, and he knows that.

I’d love for Joe to hoist up 10 threes a game!

He is the one of the best shooters in the world, and 10 okay contested threes for Joe are like wide open ones for others.

He just looks like he is trying to find his spots, but when he got frustrated against Germany late in that game, you could see he flicked a switch in his mind to be aggressive.

That is when he dropped a few threes and looked like Utah Jazz Joe, and I think he just needs to come in with that mindset against Argentina from the tip!

Aron Baynes’ absence also means they must play by committee from here to create history.

Baynes is such a big body in the paint.

I had legendary Aussie big man Luc Longley on my podcast earlier this week, and he mentioned that a lot of people forget that Aron is our best screen setter.

The Boomers would love to see Ingles nailing threes like this for Utah Jazz.

He is the guy that takes out Patty or Joe’s man to get them open shots, so we lose that with him on the sidelines.

Even before Baynes had to withdraw, we were already light on bigs. With the selection process, we didn’t really take many bigs and that could possibly hurt us at some stage.

Baynes’ absence will place some pressure on Jock Landale because he’ll be guarding Argentina’s best player in Luis Scola, at least to open the game.

Landale is also better at quick screen rolling compared to the lumbering Baynes who will make you feel every screen.

I don’t think Baynes’ exit is going to hurt us too much in the quarter-final against Argentina compared to a game against sides with a bigger presence, like the USA, France, or Spain.

I don’t think Argentina is the Argentina of old.

They are one of those teams that aren’t overly talented in this Olympic campaign. But the great Scola is still going at 41, and he is one of the best in the world, international basketball wise.

Aron Baynes’ absence has put pressure on Jock Landale.

So, Argentina won’t beat themselves, put it that way.

I don’t underestimate them, and we definitely struggled with them in the recent exhibition game in Las Vegas, and we probably got lucky to win that game with a Patty Mills three-point buzzer beater.

It was just a clunky effort from us. It was our opening game of the campaign, and it was one of our worst games ball movement wise.

We went a lot of Patty and Joe isolation ball. Something would break down and we’d just swing it to one of those guys hoping for the best and there was a lot of standing.

Whereas in the next couple of games after that we adjusted really well and realised that we can still move the ball with 10 or 11 seconds left on the shot clock and get a great shot.

It’s also paramount that we don’t lose the rebound count and turn the ball over against Argentina because we’ll probably lose. We cannot beat ourselves.

If we can tick those boxes, I think we’ll coast to victory.

Matisse Thybulle and Chris Goulding will have big roles to play off the bench.

In regard to our bench, that will also be by committee now because our rotation is messed up.

We’ve got Landale and Kay starting, so Duop Reath and Matisse Thybulle have to play bigger minutes.

Thybulle has had some foul trouble in the last few games, so there will be some rotational instances where we do see a Chris Goulding or even a Josh Green come in a bit earlier for a couple of spot minutes.

Nathan Sobey also played pretty well in his limited minutes in the last game against Germany.

Let’s be honest though, I think our defence has kept us in most game.

We are creating stops off turnovers. Against Germany, we had 13 steals and that is a ridiculous number for a FIBA game.

And most of those steals turned into fast-break lay-ups for Thybulle and the like. There is no better offence than good defence leading to a layup.

Once we face the better teams that are really mechanical with their offence, they won’t turn the ball over as much and give us as many opportunities.

Kevin Durant and Team USA look to be on the improve.

That means we’ll have to secure the defensive rebound when we do happen to get a stop.

I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but I will say this about the USA. It looks like they are slowly figuring it out. They looked a lot better in the second half against the Czech Republic when they realised they have to move the ball more and be locked in defensively.

If we play the US in a semi after that loss we gave them in the exhibition, that is going to be spoken about between Draymond (Green) and those guys and they are going to be looking to punch us back.

If it happens to be them, they will come out fired up. But first things first, the Boomers must beat Argentina.

Originally published as Tokyo Olympics 2021: NBA superstar Joe Ingles holds key to Boomers chances of gold medal