Landale: 'Mills, Bogut, Ingles brought a culture up' / News - Basketnews.com

Credit: FIBA Credit FIBA

Jock Landale's presence at the Tokyo Olympics has been exceptional, with Australia finally winning the much-desired medal after a series of letdowns in third-place games. The Aussie big, who is set to join the San Antonio Spurs on a two-year deal, scored 14 points and helped the Boomers win bronze against Slovenia in the Japanese capital.

Player of the Game EFF 33 Patrick Mills Points 42 Accuracy 15-31 Rebounds 3 Assists 9

In his post-game quotes, Landale praised present and past teammates Patty Mills, Andrew Bogut and Joe Ingles for "bringing a culture up" and admitted that all this "still doesn't feel real".

"Patty brought a culture up, Bogut brought a culture up, Joe... All of these guys. I got the chills just driving to the arena today, just trying to imagine all this gave me goosebumps. It still doesn't feel real," the former Partizan and Zalgiris player said, acknowledging how lucky he was to come into a program that was already at a high level.

"We're not done yet. But this is now going to be the standard for Australian basketball," Joe Ingles added, talking about the bright future of Australian basketball. Ingles kept some good words for Aron Baynes, who only played a game and a half with Australia, before suffering a neck injury.

"Someone said that they heard Patty screaming that this one's for Baynes on TV. He is another guy who has been a huge part of this for a long time. He's another huge friend of ours. It was an unfortunate incident that he couldn't be here with the injury but he has been as big a part of this as we have."

Credit FIBAAfter what was a career-best performance, Patty Mills talked about how special it is to win a medal with Joe Ingles next to him:

"I just tried to leave it all out there and it is a cliched thing to say that the tank was very empty. But you just knew that you needed to find deeper layers to be able to pull the best out of us for the team and that is what all of us done. Especially this guy to my right. We've been through a lot together, both on the court and off the court. It's all paid off."

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