Author Spotlight
Dian Stanchev
London 2012: Men’s basketball: Match day #4
We saw some great games in the fourth match day in the men’s basketball competition at the London 2012 Olympics. Here’s a short summary.
Group A
Tunisia-France- 69:73
The French won this game, although their performance as a team wasn’t that impressive. The score after the third quarter was 43:60 for them, but Tunisia fought hard till the end and won the last quarter 26:13. The Africans are clearly are decent side which plays with a lot of flair and will, but they always seem to lack a little something that might help them win a game. Mohamed Hadidane, who came off the bench, was their best player with 20 points, while Makram Ben Romdhane scored 17 and made 8 rebounds. Tony Parker was once again France’s top scorer with 22 points, and Nicolas Batum added 19. After this victory France qualified for the quarter-finals.
Lithuania-USA- 94:99
Lithuania played very well and were actually the first team to put up a fight against the mighty Americans in the competition. Linas Kleiza led his team with 25 points and 5 rebounds, but it wasn’t enough to stop the USA. The USA, whose biggest enemy in these Olympics is…the USA. Because it’s obvious that they’re the strongest team with the best players, but they often underestimate their opponents and think it’s always going to be an easy win. But in this case we were close to an upset, and they were lucky to get away with the win. Both their free throws and 3-point shooting were poor, but thanks to LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, who scored 20 points each, the US team recorded their 4th win in a row in the tournament.
Nigeria-Argentina- 79:93
After their crushing defeat against the USA (73:156), it was interesting to see whether Nigeria will be able to pick themselves up and show a better performance than in their previous game. Well, they lost again, although, of course, the point difference wasn’t that big in this case. Argentina more or less did the job before half time, when they were leading 37:57. The South Americans took it easy in the third and fourth quarters, which allowed Nigeria to make their loss a little less painful. Ike Diogu was, as usual, their best player, and he made yet another double-double, this time scoring 16 points and making 11 rebounds. Luis Scola got 22 points for Argentina and Carlos Delfino added another 18.
Standings:
1. USA 8 points
2. Argentina 7
3. France 7
4. Lithuania 5
5. Nigeria 5
6. Tunisia 4
Group B
Russia- Spain- 77:74
Two of the strongest teams in Europe met in this Group B derby-game. Truth is, most pundits expected Spain to win, and they could have, had they not become too assured in themselves. There were periods in the game when the Spaniards seemed to think that they’re easily going to win this match and obviously underestimated the Russians. The European Champions won the first quarter 11:28, but then David Blatt showed that he’s a true coaching genius and masterminded his team’s victory. To be fair, Russia’s big stars and Minnesota Timberwolves teammates, Andrei Kirilenko and Alexey Shved, were rather disappointing in this game, but Vitaliy Fridzon came off the bench and scored 24 points. Timofey Mozgov also didn’t start, but when on the court he performed admirable and aided his team’s cause with 12 points and 9 rebounds. Pau Gasol, as a trued leader, tried everything he knows to give his team the victory, but his 20 points weren’t enough.
China-Brazil- 59:98
We saw yet another abysmal performance by the Chinese in this competition, and they deservedly lost by almost 40 points. Their shooting was terrible (36% from the 2 point zone, 25% from the 3 point, 63% from the free throw line) and on top of that, their Captain and leader Yi Jianlian scored just 5 points. Marquinhos scored 14 for Brazil, Leandro Barbosa got 13 and Tiago Splitter- 12.
Great Britain- Australia- 75:106
At half time it seemed as if Team GB might record their first win in the competition, as they were leading by 10 points- 46:36. What coach Brett Brown and his boys talked about in the dressing room is unknown, but Australia came out for the second part as a completely different team. They won the third quarter 14:30 and the fourth- 15:40, thus recording their second win in the competition and qualifying for the quarter-finals. Joel Freeland scored 16 points for Team GB and Dan Clark added 14, while Partick Mills was on fire for the Aussies with 39 points (5 3-pointers) and David Andresen got 13.
Standings:
1. Russia 8 points
2. Brazil 7
3. Spain 7
4. Australia 6
5. Great Britain 4
6. China 4
