Paris 2024 Olympics: Rejuvenated Josh Giddey begins Olympic tournament in sparkling form for Australia
The past few months have been eventful for Australia guard Josh Giddey in his professional basketball career. He was benched during Oklahoma City’s Western Conference semifinal series against the Dallas Mavericks, a one-time cornerstone relegated to playing cheerleader because of his subpar performance.
A few weeks later, the Thunder gave Giddey an opportunity for a second chance, dealing him to the Chicago Bulls for guard Alex Caruso. Giddey will be Chicago’s primary ball handler, a role he thrived in on Saturday (27 July) morning as Australia beat Spain in the opening round of Group A play at the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
The Aussies led for all but 18 seconds, staving off Spanish rallies en route to a 92-80 victory at Pierre Mauroy Stadium, with the gifted Giddey running the show at point guard, playing with rhythm and feeding the ball to center Jock Landale, who led the Boomers with 20 points.
Giddey finished with 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists and Australia was a plus-20 when he was on the floor. It was a polished effort for a team looking to make amends for its 10th place showing at last year’s FIBA World Cup.
“We’ve got a new group from the World Cup and we went through a lot of change,” Australia coach Brian Goorjian said. “And understanding what we needed to do to win. We wanted to have some grit. We wanted to be better defensively and I thought they made two heavy runs at us. They took the lead. We were fearless and courageous and I thought we had great guard play.
“Having (Giddey) down the stretch with the ball in his hand, fresh was how we finished the game.”
When Giddey didn’t play for most of that Dallas series, he appeared expendable as the Thunder were looking for upgrades to reach the championship level. Realizing Giddey being 21-years-old and on the trade block could be difficult to digest, Goorjian paid his pupil a visit in the United States as a sense of encouragement, reminding him there was plenty of basketball this summer to reprove himself as a standout guard.
“I didn’t work, for the first time ever, I didn’t coach domestically and I went to the United States during that process and I thought we created a good bond together,” Goorjian said. “I just knew he had a huge focus on this, it’s a new start. Get through the (NBA) season, do everything you can to help OKC win it. But he was really excited about how he plays on this team. (The ball) was in his hand. It was orchestrated through him and he’s playing with no matter the circumstance, his mates, and I think you can see that in what’s gone on so far.”
The Australians are likely competing with Canada to win Group A and they turned in a sharp performance behind Giddey, Landale and the ageless Patty Mills, who drilled an off-balance 3-pointer to secure the game in the final minute.
The Olympic tournament offers Giddey a rebirth, another chance to display why he was the sixth overall pick in the NBA Draft three years ago. The rebuilding Bulls were excited to acquire Giddey as staple in their backcourt and he played like a true floor leader in the tournament opener.
“Tonight was the epitome of Australian basketball,” he said. “We had a full team effort. We had contributors all across the board. That’s what it’s going to take to win a game like this and a tournament like this. Spain is one of the powerhouse countries in this tournament and have been for a number of years. I thought our guys did an awesome job of responding to that. We didn’t take a backward step all night.”
Memphis Grizzlies forward Santi Aldama led Spain with 27 points and grizzled veteran Sergio Llull helped Spain rally to take a brief third-quarter lead, adding 17 points. But the Aussies were the better team throughout the game and proved that by making several key buckets down the stretch.
“Not flinching was one of the things we spoke about,” Giddey said. “They're going to have their runs, we're going to have ours — it's just who can withstand the storm better. When they got ahead in that third quarter, we did a good job of coming back together as a unit, getting on the front foot again. That's what got us back that lead.”
Gary Washburn is an Olympic Channel correspondent and National NBA Writer for the Boston Globe.