Australia's men's basketball team has paid the penalty for a disastrous first quarter against Athens gold medallist Argentina, going down by 17 points, 85-68 in their pool match.
The Boomers seemed unable to score or stop their opponents from doing so for the first seven minutes of the match, by which time they were down 20-3. Not coincidentally, that early 17-point deficit matched the final margin.
From that point the Australians fought hard as brilliant young guard Patrick Mills injected enormous energy, but they had little luck and were called for numerous questionable fouls without getting too many favours themselves.
Each team had small runs, and the Boomers were back within 12 at the first break (23-11), thanks in part to the composure shown by Mills, who continues to belie his youth and relative inexperience.
David Anderson, Brad Newley and Andrew Bogut, in particular, worked their team back into the match in the second period, but despite their best efforts there was only minimal impact on the scoreboard and at half-time the margin was still 10 points (39-29).
The third was a lesson in frustration for Australia as every call went against it, particularly in offence, and by the final break the deficit was back out to 17 (63-46).
From 20 down with four minutes to play, the Boomers' young guns made five baskets in a row - three of them Mills lay-ups, and one apiece to Newley and Joe Ingles - to cut the lead to 10 with two minutes left, but Manu Ginobli then hit a three, and two more to the Argentines in the closing stages sealed the result.
Mills easily top scored with 22 points, Newley had 11 (on 5-of-6 shooting) and Anderson 10, while Bogut toiled manfully under constant physical attention and registered a full book of stats, with seven points, four rebounds, two assists, two steals and three blocked shots.
But Matt Nielsen endured 13 minutes of frustration, netting just three points (1-of-5), coughing up three turnovers and copping four personal fouls. Mark Worthington was perhaps the most bewildered of all the Boomers as he was called for four fouls and also made just one basket while Chris Anstey was another who couldn't catch a break, hit with four fouls in 15 minutes and putting up only two shots.
For Argentina, Ginobli weaved his way to 21 points (and just as many complaints to the refs) and seven assists, Luis Scola had 17 points and seven rebounds and Carlos Delfino added 14.
"We've got to keep being aggressive and attacking," Mills said after the match. "Argentina are more physical on the post than we're used to."
The South Americans connected on 51 percent of their field goals, including 11-of-22 threes, while the Boomers made 45 percent of their shot attempts (29-of-64), boosted by a few lay-ups from Mills and Newley, but hit just 2-of-13 three-point shots.
Argentina also won the battle of the boards 37-29 and had twice as many assists, 18-9.
"We played Croatia before the Olympics and Argentina last week. They've both intensified a little and we haven't," Boomers coach Brian Goorjian noted.
The Boomers' next match is on Thursday against Iran, which lost to Lithuania 99-67.
In other Day 4 results, Croatia downed Russia 85-78, Greece beat Germany 87-64, China squandered a big lead and lost to Spain in overtime, 85-75, and Angola put up a fight against the US, but the Americans won 97-76.