Opals superstar Lauren Jackson has called on the likes of Jenna O'Hea and Belinda Snell to step up in Penny Taylor's absence if Australia are to win an elusive women's basketball gold medal at the Olympics.

"It's a huge, huge blow for us," Jackson said of Taylor's season-ending knee injury suffered last month while playing for Turkish club Fenerbahce.

"But for us to be successful, we need to move beyond that.

"We have two months to work as a team and find ways of compensating.

"We've got a lot of young talent. They may not have had the pressure on them previously but now they do and they have an opportunity to show how good they really are.

"Australian basketballers love that pressure. We've seen people blossom handling that adversity."