LILLE (France) - Nothing like some early day drama at the Pierre Mauroy Stadium! Greece erased a 16-point Spanish lead from the first half, tied the score with four minutes left, but Spain prevailed in a thrilling finish.
A crowd of 27,000 fans stood in awe as Sergio Scariolo's team picked up an 84-77 win, taking them to 1-1, while dropping Greece to 0-2, making their matchup with Australia a must-win situation.
Turning point
Spain played an incredible first half, powered by Sergio Llull's three three-pointers, including his trademark mandarina shot over Giannis Antetokounmpo to open up a 16-point lead at one point late in the second quarter.
However, Greece aren't going away that easily, especially if Giannis Antetokounmpo has something so say about it.
His inside finishing, plus Vasilis Toliopoulos knocking down four three-pointers, brought the gap all the way back to 71-69, when Giannis powered in for a slam over Santi Aldama to tie the game with 4:30 left.
But that only got Spain going, because they held Greece scoreless for the next three minutes, none other than Aldama being the one who got the big putback dunk himself to make it 79-71 Spain with 2:05 on the game clock.
Greece had one last push after Kostas Papanikolaou and Giannis Antetokounmpo created a quick 6-1 run, but at 80-77 with 24 seconds to play, Giannis missed a three-pointer for the tie and Spain sealed the deal from the free throw line.
Game hero
Santi Aldama is incredible. Not only did he take on the assignment of being the primary defender on Giannis Antetokounmpo, while getting help from all sides as soon as the Greek Freak touched the ball, but Aldama also powered Spain's offense.
The 23-year-old forward finished with 19 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks on the day.
Honorable mention goes to Sergio Llull, who scored 11 of his 13 points in the first half, and had 7 assists as well. At 36, he's still playing a big role for this team.
Stats don't lie
Spain made 11-of-17 shots from the three-point line in the first half, and finished 15-of-31, just enough to finish ahead of Greece's 12-of-35 from the same distance.
Bottom line
Spain are now 1-1 before their game against Canada, but need to see what the situation is like with Rudy Fernandez. The legend of Spanish basketball got injured and had to be helped off the floor and to the locker room after a nasty hit to the back of his head in a collision with Juancho Hernangomez.
The 3-2 zone worked like a charm, the offense was distributing the ball around beautifully, hitting multiple shots from both corners to laterally stretch the Greek defense completely.
As for coach Vassilis Spanoulis, he got another big game by Giannis Antetokounmpo with 27 points, but it wasn't to be.
That first half -16 hole was too big, and they wasted a lot of energy to come back.
They said
"The basic idea was to guard Giannis collectively, as a team, but select the situations where we wanted to put a second defender on him, and where we didn't want it. And to select what we were going to do when the ball was going out of his hands, closeouts, rotations, no rotations, just standing in the back, that was the most difficult part for the players. Of course, open court transition, fast rebounds, lobs, that's hard to stop. But in half court defense we did a really good job." - coach Sergio Scariolo talking about the defensive game plan
"Willy did a very good job containing his portion of responsibility." - Scariolo about Hernangomez's role in box-and-one defense vs Giannis
"We thought we'd keep it for the very end of the game. Actually, with Luis Gil, our defensive coordinator, we've been talking a lot about doing it at some point, but we decided to keep it for the very end, because I wanted to keep Willy on the floor, his pick and roll with Lorenzo is a big weapon for us. At the same time, defensively he might struggle. So, at that point, we wanted to have a box with four versatile, dynamic, fast players, who could go into a guy, get back, track Giannis, get back. Fortunatelly, it worked, because Willy did a very good job containing his portion of responsibility." - coach Scariolo about the box-and-one defense with Willy Hernangomez on Giannis Antetokounmpo in the closing minutes.
Santi is our best player, and he knows it - Brizuela
"He's our best player, and he knows it. He's making a step forward this year compared to the World Cup last year. He's our leader now, he played an amazing game and we're happy for him." - Dario Brizuela, talking about Santi Aldama
"We had courage. We had a tough start and they are a great team. But then we came back and were up 14 at the half. We knew that is a tough spot to be in - they are super good. But we just had courage. We had a couple guys on the bench do an immense job. And we stayed together. We are a family. We stay together and trust each other. That’s how you get a win and compete in the Olympics." - Santi Aldama, Spain
"A lot of us have played a lot of games like this." - Sergio Llull
"I think we were calm, we trusted the teammates that we had next to each other. A lot of us have played a lot of games like this. Close game, very high level games, and at the end this experience plays in your favor. Today it went well, and now we have to rest and think about Canada." - Sergio Llull, Spain
Quick notes
Spain ended a three-game losing streak at the Olympics dating back to 2021
Greece have started an Olympic tournament at 0-2 for the first time ever
Lorenzo Brown (10 ast) is the second Spanish player with double digit assists in a game at the Olympics, following Nacho Solozabal in 1984 (10 ast vs China)
Santi Aldama's first seven game at the Olympics combined: 13 rebounds. Santi Aldama against Greece: 12 rebounds.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is the second player to score 27+ in his first two games at the Olympics, after Chicho Sibilio did it with Spain in 1980
Giannis is also the first Greek player ever to combine for 25+ points and 10+ rebounds in a single game at the Olympics
FIBA