Author Spotlight
Dian Stanchev
London 2012: Men’s basketball: Brazil-Russia- 74:75
Group B
Brazil-Russia- 74:75
Brazil: Alex Garcia, Marcelinho Huertas, Leandro Barbosa, Anderson Varejão, Tiago Splitter
Head coach: Ruben Magnano
Russia: Alexey Shved, Sasha Kaun, Victor Khryapa, Anton Ponkrashov, Andrei Kirlilenko
Head Coach: David Blatt
Who doesn’t love a bit of drama in sports? Well, in this case- the Brazilian players and fans. In the second of today’s Group B games in the London 2012 men’s basketball competition Brazil were really close to winning against Russia, but in the lost 74:75.
Coaches Ruben Magnano and David Blatt hadn’t made any changes to their usual Starting 5’s, and why should they have? Their teams had a 100% winning record so far, so it would have been pointless to change things at this point.
The game was full of drama, especially near the end, but one can’t say that this was an extremely good game of basketball. For one thing, both teams’ shooting was terrible, especially from the 3-point zone and the free throw line. Brazil managed 6/17 3-pointers (35%) and the Russians- 6/18 (33%). The success rate from free throws was also very poor- Brazil got 10/18 (56%), while Russia had an even worse 13/24 (54%).
We could blame the tension in both sides for this, I guess, because obviously both teams were under pressure to win the match and remain unbeaten.
The Brazilians won all quarters except the second one, which became the turning point in this game. The first quarter finished 20:15 for the South Americans and Tiago Splitter was their best player in these first 10 minutes. This is the right time to mention that everyone expected Nene to be Brazil’s starting center at the Olympics, but coach Magnano has been fielding the 211 cm San Antonio Spurs player instead of the more experienced Nene.
Russia came out as a different team in the second quarter, or to completely fair- Brazil were just much weaker. The Europeans won 12:25 which gave them a 32:40 lead at half time. Andrei Kirilenko was on fire for his team and he scored 14 points in this quarter, once again proving that the Minnesota Timberwolves were absolutely right when they decided to sign him last week, thus bringing him back to the NBA after his brief spell back home with CSKA Moscow. By the way, this is the second transfer of a Russian player from CSKA to the Timberwolves within the last two weeks, as Minnesota previously signed shooting guard Alexey Shved too.
Back to the game though, and the third quarter, which was narrowly won by the Brazilians 21:19. This made the score 53:59 and there was everything to play for in the last quarter.
And it the last seconds of the game all hell broke loose. Brazil were leading 72:69 with 26 seconds left on the clock when Shved scored a 3-pointer and equalized- 72:72. 6 seconds to go and Marcelinho Huertas scored inside the paint- 74:72- what drama! Of course, after this happened, David Blatt took a time out. And oh dear, after the time out, with 4 seconds to go, Shved passed the ball to Vitaliy Fridzon. The Khimki guard took a shot from the 3-point zone and scored- 74:75. In the last second Leandro Barbosa tried to win it for his team with another 3-pointer, but his effort was unsuccessful.
After this win Russia qualified for the next round and their next games (against Spain and Australia) matter only for the final standings. On the other hand, Brazil play against China on Saturday and then against Spain on Monday, and while it seems unlikely that they get knocked out of the competition, they might want to win at least one of the two games in order to get easier opposition in the quarter finals.
Top Scorers:
Brazil: Leandro Barbosa 16, Larry Taylor 12
Russia: Andrei Kirilenko 19, Timofey Mozgov 18
Rebounds:
Brazil: Nene 10, Tiago Splitter 5
Russia: Timofey Mozgov & Sergey Monya- 7 each
Assists:
Brazil: Marquinhos Sousa 4
Russia: Alexey Shved 6
