Sign Up
..... Connect Australia with the world.
Categories

Posted: 2024-07-30 06:09:59

Dante Exum has trained fully ahead of the Boomers' Olympic clash with Canada and could return from his finger injury one game earlier than expected.

The Dallas Mavericks guard suffered a compound dislocation of his finger in the side's final warm-up game last week and missed the Boomers' Games-opening defeat of Spain.

The 2014 No.5 draft pick was excellent in Australia's Tokyo bronze medal campaign three years ago, snapping a long run of injuries to dominate in Europe and earn another NBA crack.

ABC Sport is live blogging every day of the Paris Olympics

It was thought he would also miss Tuesday's clash with the stacked Canadian side in Lille and target a return in the side's final pool game against Greece.

But coach Brian Goorjian confirmed Exum had trained fully on Monday and was likely to suit up against the Shai Gilgeous-Alexander-powered side.

Australia's Dante Exum rises above the rim to dunk the basketball over two Argentina players.

Dante Exum made his mark when representing Australia at the Tokyo Olympics.(Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

"Ahead of schedule," he said.

"We'll assess how he pulled up, but we think the chances are strong for tomorrow."  

RJ Barrett scored a team-high 23 points while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander came up clutch with 21 points, seven assists and five rebounds as Canada beat Greece to open their account.

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored a game-high 34 points for Greece in the loss and looms as a literally large figure beyond the NBA-stacked Canadian team in the Boomers' path to quarter-final action in Paris.

"Good start, but the competition's getting stronger as we go along," Goorjian said. 

"Canada's a really strong basketball team, one of the favourites for a medal.

"We want to play good defence, which creates pace and those two things have been our keys to success."

  • The Boomers match against Canada is scheduled to start at 9.30PM tonight, AEST. ABC Sport is blogging moment of the Paris Olympics live.

AAP

Sports content to make you think... or allow you not to. A newsletter delivered each Saturday.

View More
  • 0 Comment(s)
Captcha Challenge
Reload Image
Type in the verification code above