FIBA – Men’s Day 3 Group B Round-Up

BEIJING (Olympics) - Star-studded USA and 2006 FIBA World Champions Spain posted their wins in as many games and shared the top spot in Group B in the Olympic men’s basketball competition on Thursday.

The two match wits on Saturday in what should decide the Group B toppers.

USA avenged their 2006 FIBA World Championship semifinal defeat by beating Greece 92-69 and Spain overcame a first quarter deficit to beat European rivals Germany 72-59.

In the other game of the day, center Yao Ming played true to form and fame as hosts China rolled past FIBA Africa champions Angola 75-68.

On Saturday, China take on Germany – both at 1-2 – in a contest that could decide the fourth team to make the quarterfinal from this group. Greece, also at 1-2 play winless Angola.

Greece seemed fresh in their memories of that famous 101-95 win over the Americans two years ago when they kept up with their rivals and even led on occasions in the first five minutes of the first quarter. But Kobe Bryant put USA 15-13 up, off a Chris Paul assist and the Americans never trailed after that.

Greece continued to fight and cut down the deficit to eight, but Bryant sunk a three-pointer, to spark an 11-0 run – Chris Bosh coming up with two three-point plays – and steer the Americans to a 51-32 lead going into the changing rooms.

Mike Krzyzewski’s team was in command for the rest of the game.

“We wanted to really keep the pressure on them. We wanted to kind of redeem ourselves,” Bosh said.

“This was kind of like a payback game for us and we knew that people were wondering how we were going to respond, so we tried to play a solid game and stay on them the whole game.”

Bryant and Bosh topped the scoring for the USA with 18 points each. Lebron James contributed 13 points, besides collecting six rebounds.

Dwight Howard too had six boards, but collected four personal fouls in the first 12 minutes and sat out the rest of the game. His replacement center Bosh more than made amends.

“Any time you get beaten it’s embarrassing and that’s enough,” Bosh added.

“And we can really use that as a tool to help us with our defense now, and that’s the name of the game. Because if you play good defense, no matter how you’re shooting the ball you’re going to be in the game.”

Theo Papaloukas led the scoring for Greece with 15 points.

“If you play with teams like the United States, it makes the team a lot better in our technique and conditioning,” said Greek coach Panagiotis Giannakis.

Having needed the Overtime to beat China in their previous game, Spain played a tight game in defense to keep German superstar Dirk Nowitzki at bay and eventually clinched the advantage.

Nowitzki was restricted to just 11 points, five out of 15 on shooting, as Spain shrugged off an early deficit to gain control.

A 17-0 run that began with 0:38 left in the second quarter, which began when Jose-Manuel Calderon sunk a three-pointer and finished on Jorge Garbajosa’s three-pointer early in the third quarter, titled the scales in favour of Spain. A three pointer each from Rudy Fernandez and Alex Mumbru and Ricky Rubio’s five points, including a three-point play were the other features of this run which took the game away from Germany.

When Germany threatened to close in the gap, late in the fourth quarter, Calderon struck again with three-pointers on two occasions to ensure there were no last minute hitches for his side. The Toronto Raptors Point Guard, who was 3 on 4 in his three-point attempts, topped the scoring for his side with 15 points.

Alex Mumbru scored off all his three three-pointer attempts to finish with 14 points as Pau Gasol chipped in with 13. Pau’s younger brother Marc pulled down eight boards as Spain out-rebounded the Germans 41-30.

Steffen Hamann led the scoring for Germany with 15 points.

“They are a good team and they just made better offensive plays than us. We could have beaten them if we had played better,” German center Chris Kaman said.

Yao Ming struck big as China took Angola’s number.

It was not that Angola went down without a whimper. The African champions pulled back from a 16-point deficit to trail by just two points at the half-time, but China with Yao in form, pulled away in the second half.

Jonas Kaslauskas’ squad, having suffered two defeats in their previous games, including the heart-breaking loss to Spain in Overtime, came up with a performance that delighted the Wukesong Arena.

Yao had a 10/11 record from both field as well as the stripe for a game-high 30 points. The Houston Rockets star also pulled down seven rebounds.

“It feels great, when you win at the Olympics, in front of your home fans it is special,” Yao said.

“I feel great. We played shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand. We played like a team and we got the win.”

Kazlauskas was even more relieved with the win.

“I was afraid after our first two games but today, I can be more hopeful,” he said.

“We started really well, we prepared for this game. But after that, I don’t know what happened. We relaxed too much and we thought the game was over,” the Lithuanian added.

Scores
Spain 72 (Jose-Manuel Calderon 15, Alex Mumbru 14, Pau Gasol 13) bt Germany 59 (Steffen Hamann 15, Dirk Nowitzki 11) Quarterwise Scores: 12-15, 39-36, 59-48.

China 85 (Yao Ming 30, Sun Yue 11) bt Angola 68 (Joaqium Gomes 17, Carlos Morais 13). Quarterwise Scores: 28-15, 44-42, 65-51.

USA 92 (Kobe Bryant 18, Chris Bosh 18, Dwyane Wade 17, Lebron James 13) bt Greece 69 (Theo Papaloukas 15, Vasileios Spanoulis 14).
Quarterwise Scores: 20-16, 51-32, 74-54.

FIBA