The Australian men's basketball team is struggling to fire on its European tour, slipping to a third straight loss.

The Boomers are in Europe preparing for next month's Oceania championship series against New Zealand, which will determine seedings at the Athens Olympics.

But the team is showing some worrying signs offensively, losing 70-59 to Greece in Thessaloniki, its second loss to the Greeks in under a week.

The Boomers were also beaten by world champion Yugoslavia.

Coach Brian Goorjian must be thanking the basketball gods for the return of Shane Heal, who again top-scored with 17 points, but he didn't receive enough support with Paul Rogers adding 12 points and Matt Nielsen next best with just six.

The team has spent less than two months together and is still finding its feet, but with the first game of the Oceania series on September 1, time is quickly running out.

Goorjian could at least find some positives in the Boomers' defence.

"Defensively this game, we were better," he said.

"Offensively, we're obviously having trouble scoring but we're slowly improving.

"Our work ethic was better this game and hopefully our scoring will improve with time."

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