CAN/ITA - Canada's woes continue as Italy lift trophy

BORMIO (FIBA Americas Championship | EuroBasket) - Canada's tough tour of Europe continued as they went down to defeats against Bulgaria and Macedonia in the Trofeo Giannati in Bormio, Italy over the weekend.

Coming on the back of consecutive defeats to France, Canada fell to 0-4 on their travels as they lost 79-72 to Bulgaria and then 72-65 against Macedonia.

However, Canada Basketball chief executive Wayne Parrish insisted there is nothing to be too concerned about at this stage of their preparations for the FIBA Americas Championship.

"Last summer we clobbered France in two exhibition games and then beat China handily, so there's not much stock to be put in exhibition games at this stage," Parrish told the Toronto Sun.

"I'm counting on this being a mirror reflection of that and later in the summer is where you'll see the best play from our guys."

Canada still have Joel Anthony, Cory Joseph and Carl English to come into the squad, and could use their help.

Against Bulgaria, Canada got off to a strong start, using an early 15-0 run to go 25-15 up and then lead 49-36 at half-time.

But Bulgaria were a different proposition in the second half, and they eventually pulled ahead in the final five minutes on Asen Velikov's three-pointer.

Andy Rautins led Canada with 18 points while Levon Kendall added 15.

Kaloyan Ivanov and Filip Videnov had 15 each for Bulgaria.

Against Macedonia, Canada again led at half-time, 38-31, but suffered after the break as they managed only eight points in the third quarter.

Kendall scored 13 points while Aaron Doornekamp and Jesse Young had 12 each.

Kiril Nikolovski had 14 points for Macedonia.

Hosts Italy collected a pair of wins in the tournament, beating Macedonia 89-70 and Bulgaria 80-74 to get off to an impressive start in their warm-up games for the EuroBasket.

An early 10-1 run set up a comfortable win over Macedonia, in which the visitors only once threatened a comeback, closing the gap to six, 31-25, in the second quarter before Italy pulled clear again.

Marco Belinelli led Italy with 16 points while Danilo Gallinari added 15.

Stefano Mancinelli had 12 points and Daniel Hackett and Marco Carraretto each added 11. 

Italy then ensured it would be they who lifted the trophy by beating Bulgaria, holding off a second-half rally from the visitors who had trailed 43-29 at the break but started the third period on a 9-2 run to come back. 

Gallinari led Italy with 20 points while Belinelli had 19, delighting coach Simone Piannigiani who is now awaiting the return of Andrea Bargnani this week.

"To me, it was important for us to find some common language on the cort," he said. "And we have seen we have done that. We read the situations well and played as a team. 

"Maybe we were still a little too soft on defense. But I like that even when there was some physical drop off, we still showed great desire to take the victory.

"Even when we were tired we were able to resist them and this is a good sign of our character and mentality."

FIBA