All it took was one shot. One player. One legend. One final moment for Patty Mills, Australia’s bronze medal hero at Tokyo, to add yet another chapter to his storied career in the green and gold.

It was as if the script had written itself, with the Boomers needing at least two points to send their quarterfinal against Serbia to overtime and 9.8 seconds left in the final quarter.

Almost every touch Patty had by that point had turned to gold and, with three-time MVP Nikola Jokic on him, when Mills rose up into the air, falling back, you just knew it was going in – even if it shouldn’t have.

It was a magical moment that will be remain etched in the minds of Australian basketball fans, even if what followed makes it harder to accept this is the way Mills could bow out in the green and gold.

What looked destined to be a memorable win instead turned to heartbreak as Serbia claimed a thrilling 95-90 overtime win to end the Boomers’ Paris Olympics campaign.

In reality, it never should have even got to that point. It wasn’t just Mills. It seemed like nobody could miss in the first quarter for the Boomers, who made a dream start to open up a 31-17 lead.

Australia was 13-for-17 from the field and made three of its four 3-point attempts. Mills had 12 points in the first quarter alone while Josh Giddey had eight after being the early spark for the offence.

But, as has been the case all tournament, turnovers ended up crippling the Boomers as their 54-42 halftime lead quickly dissipated and the offence started to unravel.

Most telling was the fact Goorjian at one point felt the need to go to an all-bench line-up, seemingly looking for anything to get Australia back on track.

In the end, it was only a Mills prayer shot that will likely prevent a particularly intense post-mortem of this Boomers loss, one that shouldn’t have happened considering Australia led by as many as 24 points.

Giddey and Mills combined for 51 points for the Boomers while Jack McVeigh added 13 off the bench.

Dyson Daniels, on the other hand, while offering his usual elite perimeter defence was scoreless after a strong opening to his Paris campaign as he put up just two field goal attempts.

Elsewhere, Jock Landale had only five points and ended up fouling out before overtime while both back-up bigs Will Magnay and Duop Reath had an impact in different ways in increased minutes.

Josh Green and Joe Ingles were the only Boomers not to see any playing time – well Green got one second, brought on as part of a defensive-minded line-up in the final seconds of one quarter.

Giddey was on fire early, consistently getting into the paint to score eight early points before Mills caught fire late in the quarter after he checked back in.

For a team that had struggled to get consistent offensive production at times in the group stage, it was jarring to see the variety of different ways the Boomers were scoring on Tuesday night.

Giddey was flying up the court for a transition layup one minute and then fooling a defender with a behind-the-back dribble to drain a pull up jumper the next.

Mills, meanwhile, seemingly couldn’t miss – even if some of his shots were coming from behind the backboard, finishing the first quarter alone with 12 points in what Andrew Gaze described as a “start for the ages” from the veteran guard.

This was the same Boomers team that entered the quarterfinals with the worst offence of any team that advanced, scoring 90.7 points per 100 possessions according to Synergy.

Although the rotations, at least early in the game, were different as Goorjian gave Matthew Dellavedova and Reath minutes in the first quarter and found success with that strategy too.

Serbia certainly suited Australia as a stylistic match-up, at least if the Boomers were able to get the ball out in transition, and they were able to do that a lot in the first quarter.

Sometimes, to a fault, the Boomers tried to do that a little bit too much in the second quarter, forcing passes that led to turnovers and saw Serbia reduce the deficit to 54-42 by halftime.

But for the most part, the Boomers were able to avoid letting Serbia get too close as was the case against Canada, where Jordi Fernandez’s team adjusted in the second half on the way to victory.

The challenge for the Boomers was to make a fast enough start to the third quarter to effectively snuff out any chance of Serbia clawing its way back into the game.

Australia forced a turnover on the first possession of the quarter but from that point on it was all Serbia, with the Boomers seeing their lead dwindle down to just four.

Bogdan Bogdanovic then put Serbia ahead as turnovers once again proved Australia’s undoing, with nine alone in the quarter as Giddey in particular was far too sloppy and aggressive with his passing.

That over aggressiveness also extended to the defensive end, where the Boomers were guilty of pushing the help rotations and with Serbia’s improved ball movement, it led to wide open 3-pointers to the likes of Bogdanovic and Ognjen Dobric.

Serbia entered the final quarter leading 67-65 and a poor start to the fourth saw that extend to a six-point buffer before two crucial buckets from Dante Exum and McVeigh closed the gap.

In a game that looked likely to go down to the wire, a missed free throw from Vasilije Micić opened the door for the Boomers, giving them 9.8 seconds to produce at least two points to send it to overtime.

Although even that looked like too tall a task for the Boomers given the way the offence had looked down the stretch.

But Mills did just that in spectacular fashion, although with Landale fouling out the Boomers were suddenly without their starting big man for the most important part of the game.

Australia was able to take a 90-87 lead at one point but fell behind 93-90 and then it was fitting that, with 25 seconds left, the Boomers turned the ball over on a poor in-bounds pass to gift Serbia the victory.

Having averaged 16.7 turnovers per game in group play, it was the fatal flaw that ended up sending Australia home heartbroken.

LIVE BLOG

Re-live every moment from the Boomers’ game against Serbia in our blog.

Can’t see the blog? Click here!