Rusty Canada can’t overcome poor shooting in loss to Serbia

Their first game together in more than 17 months got off to a shaky start, with one missed shot after another.

Canada’s women’s basketball team arrived in Tokyo intent on climbing the medal podium for the first time in history, but now face a steeper path after a 72-68 loss to Serbia in Monday’s opener.

If the rust of that long pandemic-induced layoff had something to do with Canada’s sluggish start to the Tokyo Olympics, coach Lisa Thomaidis wasn’t making any excuses.

“It’d been 17 months since, but we were working hard to do what we could despite the fact that we’d been remote for that amount of time,” she said. “We’re a team that does have a lot of experience playing together in previous years.

“There’s no second chances here. So, we’ll get it turned around. I think the second half was a good indication of how we want to play and we’ll see that at the beginning of the next game.”

Nirra Fields had a game-high 19 points, while Hamilton’s Kia Nurse had 16 points and six rebounds for the Canadians, who had to dig themselves out of a double-digit first-half deficit because of poor shooting. Shay Colley added 12 points before leaving the game with an apparent right shoulder injury in the third quarter.

Despite forcing 28 Serbian turnovers and outrebounding their opponent on the offensive glass, the fourth-ranked Canadians were off target most of the night, going 5-for-24 from three-point range, and 38 per cent overall.

The Serbians, led by Sonja Vasic’s 16 points, shot 8-of-17 from long distance.

Trailing by 11 points in the first half, a solid third quarter saw Canada lead briefly, and the two teams went into the fourth tied at 45-45.

Tied again with 4:25 to play, three consecutive Serbia threepointers — including one from Aleksandra Crvendakic off an over-the-head no-look pass from Ana Dabovic — had the 2021 EuroBasket champions up by seven.

A Fields three-pointer sliced the difference to two with 51 seconds to play, but Dabovic scored the game-winner with two seconds to play to clinch the win.

“There’s ebbs and flows in games and tournaments and our shots weren’t falling,” said Guelph’s Natalie Achonwa. “I think we did a better job in the second half of being more aggressive and dictating, so we weren’t settling for as many shots and that’s why you saw the flip in the score.

“And it starts on defence. We were just settling for shots because they were scoring and we were walking the ball down the court. But when we started to get stops, and we were aggressive on defence, it made our offence a lot easier.”

The Canadians face No. 19 South Korea on Thursday in the 12-team tournament, then face third-ranked Spain on Sunday. Spain held on to edge South Korea 73-69 in the earlier game Monday.