FIBA – Men’s Day 2 Group B Round-Up

BEIJING (Olympics) - FIBA World Champions Spain rose like the proverbial Phoenix to beat hosts China 85-75 in Overtime, in a spectacular Group B clash in the Olympic men’s basketball competition on Tuesday.

Team USA, meanwhile, had no trouble whatsoever in quashing FIBA Africa champions Angola 97-76.

In the other game of the day, Greece played some fantastic defense to curb their rival mainstays and defeated Germany 87-64.

Spain and the USA are now 2-0 and will play against opponents who are locked 1-1, on Thursday. Spain match wits with Germany, while the USA take on Greece. Angola and China, both at 0-2, will play each other.

An 8-2 run in the last two minutes of the first quarter and a12-0 spree in the closing moments of the second perched the USA right on top as they closed the first half 55-37 ahead. A position of comfort that was never disturbed.

Dwyane Wade scored 12 of his team-high 19 and Dwight Howard struck 11 of his 14 in the first half itself.

“First of all, on behalf of my team-mates, we would like to thank Angola for playing so hard tonight,” Wade said.

“They made us play our A game. We are getting better like we do every game and we are really proud of that.”

USA now take on the tougher Greece in the next game. The last time the two met, in the semifinals of the 2006 FIBA World Championship, Greece had won 101-95.

Angola took to the court without Olimpio Cipriano, arguably their best player, who is yet to recover from the shoulder injury suffered in the opening defeat to Germany. And in his absence, Carlos Morais led the scoring with a game-high 24 points.

It was China all the way, against Spain, till the start of the fourth quarter. The hosts trailed by a basket at the first quarter (18-20), but played gallantly and outscored their rivals 28-17 and 15-10 over the next two quarters. The 18,000-capacity crowd watched with bated breath as their team, 61-47 ahead, going into the fourth quarter, seemed to upset the applecart of the World champions.

But Spain had other ideas. Los Angeles Lakers superstar Pau Gasol struck down six of his game-high 29 points, as Spain went on a 12-3 run to close the margin to just three (61-64) with 5:24 left in the game.

Felipe Reyes, who was otherwise quiet, came into his own, with a few jumpers as Spain began to chip away as Rudy Fernandez continued his good showing. Fernandez, who will travel to the NBA to play for Portland Trailblazers, finished with 21 points, eight assists and nine rebounds.

“It has been a very difficult game,” Fernandez said, “especially in the first half.

“We didn’t play the way we are used to playing. China have been very effective and in the third and fourth quarter, when we put pressure and we defended better, we posed more problems for them and that’s when we started running and won the game. I thought China played a great game.”

Marc Gasol tied the score for Spain at 72, after Wang Zhizhi’s three-pointer had put China ahead. And 17-year-old Ricky Rubio played a stellar role in stopping Liu Wei from scoring what might have been a clincher for the hosts. Of course, Rubio himself faltered moments later to seal the issue, narrowly missing his attempt.

In the Overtime, Chinese superstar Yao Ming fouled out and Pau Gasol added nine more to his tally and Spain steered away to their second win.

Liu topped the scoring for China with 19 points.

“I think we did a good job,” China guard Sun Yue said.

“I am proud of what we did considering Spain are the 2006 world champions. We showed that China can compete against a team of this level.”

“I think Spain showed a lot of experience.”

“We hurried too much and they were so cool. We got nervous,” he added.

Greece too fell behind at the end of the first quarter, but woke up early enough to avoid any last minute heart-stops.

Germany began rather well to turn a 5-14 deficit into a 23-21 lead at the end of the first quarter. But the Greek held the Germans without scoring for the first five minutes of the second quarter, but themselves scoring 12 in the meantime.

That spree combined with some remarkable defense on Germany’s NBA stars Dirk Nowitzki and Chris Kaman ensured Greece didn’t have to look back.

Greece held Nowitzki to just 13 points on three of eight shooting and Kaman had four points and just two rebounds.

Germany coach Dirk Bauermann admitted the Greek defense had been decisive.

“I thought they played a great defensive game,” he said. “I thought their defense was extremely intense, very physical.”

“They took all, especially Chris Kaman, completely out of the game. They trapped him, they threw a lot of guys around him. That can happen.”

“I have played against Kaman before because I was in Seattle last year,” Greece center Andreas Glyniadakis said.

“He is a great player, an all-star player but basketball here is different. With good team work, you can get things to happen.”

Vasilis Spanoulis finished with a game-high 23 points for Greece with Theo Papaloukas adding 15 and Diamantidis 12.

Greece, will now hope to take the momentum to their next game against the USA.

Scores

Greece 87 (Vassilis Spanoulis 23, Theo Papaloukas 15, Dimitris Diamantidis 12) bt Germany 64 (Dirk Nowitzki 13, Demond Greene 11, Sven Schultze 11). Quarterwise Scores: 21-23, 44-33, 69-48

Spain 85 (Pau Gasol 29, Rudy Fernandez 21) bt China 75 (Liu Wei 19, Zhu Fangyu 15, Wang Zhizhi 15, Yao Ming 11). Quarterwise Scores: 20-18, 37-46, 47-61, 72-72.

USA 97 (Dwyane Wade 19, Dwight Howard 14, Lebron James 12, Carmelo Anthony 12) bt Angola 76 (Carlos Morais 24). Quarterwise Scores: 29-18, 55-37, 81-53.

FIBA