PARIS (AP) — There will be no repeat medal for Patty Mills at the Paris Olympics. There was, however, another chapter to his legacy in the international game.
Maybe the last chapter.
Australia and “FIBA Patty” — that’s what people call him when he puts on the national team uniform, because his game often seems to rise to a different level in international play — were ousted from the Paris Games on Tuesday, falling 95-90 to Serbia in overtime in the quarterfinals.
Mills finished with 26 points and if this was the end — at least on this stage — he would finish his Olympic career with 567 points. That’s fifth-most in Olympic men’s basketball history, behind only Oscar Schmidt, Andrew Gaze, Pau Gasol and Luis Scola.
“This is why you play international basketball,” Mills said. “It’s a different sport than any other league in the world. It brings the best out of everyone.”
And for a four-minute stretch of the first half, FIBA Patty was surely at his best.
He had two points in the game’s first eight minutes, two more in the final eight minutes of the half. That sliver of time in the middle was dazzling: 16 points in a span of 3:31, to be exact, an array of 3-pointers and drives and high-arching shots that hit nothing but net.
It all fueled a 20-0 run, one that gave Australia a 24-point lead.
“To be honest, I don’t know if there’s anything going through my mind at that stage other than just being able to do what you rep and rep and rep and the thousands and millions of shots that you practice just to have a three-minute stretch like that,” Mills said. “No one will ever be able to understand. It’s a lot of practice. If there’s any advice, it’s that the practice and the hard work will pay off.”
Mills has worn Australia’s colors in no fewer than 15 international FIBA tournaments, including five Olympics — Beijing in 2008, London in 2012, Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Tokyo three years ago on a run to a bronze medal, and now Paris.
To put in perspective who Mills becomes when he plays for Australia, it can be explained like this:
— In 990 NBA games, including playoffs, he’s scored 30 or more points five times.
— In 29 Olympic games, he’s done that four times.
Let’s take that a step further. His high in the NBA this past season was 17 points, for Miami in a blowout win over Portland. On Tuesday, he had 18 points in his first nine minutes on the court.
“We threw everything at them,” Mills said.
His NBA high is 34 points. He’s topped that twice in Olympic play: 39 points against Britain in 2012 to give Australia a spot in the London quarterfinals, then 42 points against Slovenia three years ago for the bronze medal in Tokyo, the long-awaited first podium trip on the major international stage for the Boomers.
His final basket Tuesday: a falling-down prayer from the foul line over the outstretched arm of Serbian star and NBA MVP Nikola Jokic with about one second left in regulation, forcing overtime.
“You live for those moments,” Mills said. “Down two, as a little kid, in the backyard, underneath the clothesline in Australia. You imagine yourself in those moments, being able to hit a big shot in the Olympic Games to force overtime. We gave ourselves a chance. At the end of the day, it wasn’t our day.”
Mills turns 36 on Sunday. Longtime Australian teammate Joe Ingles is 36. Matthew Dellavedova is 33. With no major international tournament until the next World Cup in 2027, it surely seems like this is the end of this run for that core of Boomers. It’s likely time for the next generation — 21-year-old Josh Giddey had a brilliant Olympics — to take over, and Mills said that with players like that “the Boomers are in great hands.”
“We’ve just enjoyed every moment of this journey,” Mills said. “It hasn’t been a smooth-sailing ship, but you do it together and you never take those moments for granted. But through the thick and thin and ups and downs, happy tears, sad tears, it’s been an incredible journey to be able to share with those guys.”
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