The Boomers have reverted to type at the Paris Olympics, knocked out of the men’s basketball tournament with another heart-breaking loss, this time to Serbia.

Australia led by as many as 24 points in the second term of the quarterfinal, before Serbia roared back.

Inspirational Boomers captain Patty Mills forced the game to overtime when he tied the scores at 82 with a remarkable fadeaway jump shot over three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic with a second left in regulation.

But Jokic got his revenge, hitting a trademark off-balance dagger in the post to give the Serbs a 93-90 lead.

Boomers star Josh Giddey turned the ball over on the inbound pass at the other end, Bogdan Bogdanovic hit two free throws to make it 95-90, and the Boomers’ were out of the Olympics before the semifinals for the first time since 2012. 

“We threw everything at them, it just wasn’t our day. They played a hell of a game,” Mills told Channel Nine.

The 35-year-old skipper was playing his fifth Olympics, and spoke as if it may be his last.

“We’ve had a blast, this journey’s been fun,” he told Nine.

“We’ve stuck together, we’ve stayed together as a group.

“This is the Olympic Games. These are the games you want to play. It was fun.”

After three gutting fourth-place finishes (in 1996, 2000 and 2016) the Boomers secured Australian men’s basketball’s first Olympic medal with bronze in Tokyo three years ago.

But the showdown with Serbia had all the hallmarks of those pre-2021 years, including some brilliance from Mills, costly turnovers and, of course, a loss as heart-pounding as it was heart-breaking.